Song of the Dark Between
by Tessa Crowley
Summary: Draco Malfoy jumps off a bridge, hoping for death but getting something very different. Harry Potter languishes in a loveless marriage and colorless world, until quite abruptly he does not. From the dark places of the universe, there is a song that echoes everywhere and nowhere. It sings of power and it sings of hunger. It will devour all things before the end. Multiple crossovers.
1. The Bloodied Unicorn

**Author's Note:** This is an hugely, impossibly, inexcusably enormous clusterfuck of a crossover. A crossterfuck, if you will.

However, **YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE FAMILIAR WITH ALL THE FANDOMS TO READ THIS STORY.** It certainly doesn't hurt if you are, but it is by no means necessary.

* * *

He stares at it thoughtfully in its hermetically sealed cage. It stands snarling and nickering over its latest meal. The raw chunks of meat are still twitching.

"It's pretty bloodthirsty," says a voice behind him.

"Yes," he agrees.

"It doesn't seem like your usual style."

He doesn't answer for a while. Some part of him knows that the assessment is not inaccurate. Perhaps he should be worried, but he is not. He stares at the gleaming, bloody, vicious monstrosity, rendered only safe by tempered glass and special goggles – he thinks about unleashing it on an unsuspecting city, about all the havoc it would cause and people it would kill – and he feels a surge of oppressive, suffocating nothing.

"Wait until it falls asleep," he says, "then turn it loose. We need to observe it in a less controlled environment before we start breeding them."

"Ah. Yes. I mean, right."

He turns on a heel and exits the lab, boots falling heavy on the tile. He remembers the days when he was working out of his basement, when he had only one henchman. Now he has an entire underground complex and a fleet of thickheaded sycophants ready and willing to do his bidding.

It is all he ever wanted. It should bring him intense satisfaction.

It does not, however.

He enters his private office and sits down at the gleaming mahogany desk in front of his computer. He flicks on the camera on a tripod beside his monitor.

He stares into the lens for a while, caught in a wave of nostalgia, of the days when he took pleasure from this. It feels like a distant dream.

"So begins Dr. Horrible's video blog update, September 9," he says into the camera, deadpan. "My creation is ready to be turned loose."

* * *

Elsewhere, Harry sits down for dinner with his wife.

His dining room has off-white walls and taupe wainscoting. The curtains are gray. The silverware is dull. The wine is bad. In the other room, the radio plays the warbling, forgettable tones of Celestina Warbeck.

Ginny is wearing a beige dress. She is drinking the bad wine and talking, but Harry cannot hear her. It's not that he isn't listening, it's just that when he listens, all her words run together, and all Harry can hear is a low, droning hum, like a distant bee's nest or buzzing static.

Harry realizes, for the first time or perhaps for the thousandth time, that marrying his first love at eighteen may have been a bad idea.

"—go to bed early?"

The second half of the question pierces the fog like fingertips through wet paper. Harry's eyes shift back into focus. Ginny sips her bad wine and shifts in her chair so her beige dress wrinkles, and she looks at Harry like she's expecting an answer.

"I'm going out," Harry says, unsure if it's an answer to her question, but finding he doesn't care about that as much as he should.

Ginny seems neither surprised nor disappointed. Harry can't remember the last time he saw any trace of emotion on her face, though perhaps he had not been looking.

Harry is suddenly aware of the fact that he does not love his wife anymore. Perhaps he should feel more startled, or sad, or anything, but he does not.

"All right," she says, and takes another sip of bad wine.

Harry looks down at his plate full of food and knows that he should eat it, but finds he no longer has his appetite. Ginny never was a very good cook.

"I'm going out now," he continues.

"All right," she says again.

Harry stands up from his dining room chair. It scrapes across blonde oak hardwood. He leaves the dining room and goes for the hallway. He does not have a destination in mind – maybe he will go to the pub at the corner (magical), or maybe to the cinema down the road (Muggle) – but, like most nights, he does not find himself very worried about the destination. It has less to do with going and more to do with leaving.

He puts on his jacket instead of his cloak, because though there are a few witches and wizards living in their sleepy little development in Sackham's Way, it is mostly a Muggle village. He grabs his keys and his wand and kicks on his shoes.

Harry's entire life changes, quite without warning, when he steps onto the stoop of his flat to a great explosion of color.

* * *

_Far below, there is a rushing and churning of water as it battles downstream. It is crashing over rocks and the rain has the Severn River threatening to break its banks. Draco stares down at it, grateful for the rain on his face despite the fact that there is no one around to see him crying._

_Here at the end of all things, despite everything, he is still a coward, and it eats him up inside._

_He shuts his eyes and blanks his mind. His biggest curse has always been the way he overthinks things. _Just do it,_ he tells himself. _Your affairs are in order. Just do it. Just jump. Just fall.

_Thunder bellows. Lightning flashes blue. This is the only way. He knows it is. This has been the only way for years. Draco has forgotten why he's held on so long._

_He breathes deeply, though his throat his tight. He releases his grip on the iron palisade. He tips. He falls._

_He lands far too soon in something viscous. It breaks his fall with a loud, obscene smacking sound._

_Draco wrenches around, gasping and groping for something solid._

_The rain has stopped. He is no longer outdoors. He is thrashing around in a completely undignified manner in a massive vat of what looks and smells like mint jelly. The entire room is roaring, deafening, vibrating through all surfaces._

_In his abject alarm, he has no time for confusion._

_"Oy!"_

_At last, Draco's hands find purchase on the edge of the vat. His center of gravity is constantly shifting. A few piles of books and what looks like an entire sofa rolls past him, tumbling as though they can't decide which way is up._

_"How did you get in here?"_

_Draco looks up. There is a man with a big head and a tattered suit on the far end of the room with the jelly-filled vat. He is holding onto the wall as the entire room tips and tumbles._

_It takes him a minute to answer: "Where the fuck am I?" He sounds a bit more shrill than is probably dignified._

_"Language!" the man in the tattered suit says._

_"Language?!"_

_Several trumpets and a live chicken fall out of the ceiling as the room lurches mightily to one side._

_"Where in shitting fuck am I?"_

_"You're in my swimming pool!"_

_There's another great shift of gravity, accompanied by a large spark of light on the wall, which promptly falls open with a tremendous clatter._

_"_This is not a fucking swimming pool!_"_

_"No one ever said swimming pools had to be full of water!"_

_"I'm fairly sure there's a rule about them being _freely fucking rotating—!"

_Dodging falling debris, the man in the tattered suit races forward and grabs Draco by the arm, pulling him up out of the not-swimming pool. Draco scarcely regains his balance before they both go stumbling again as the room spins backwards beneath their feet._

_"We can't stay here!" the man in the tattered suit says._

_"What is going on?"_

_"Long story short, this is a ship and it's going to crash – though not before its internal temperature rises to a balmy 30,000 degrees Kelvin!"_

_Somehow, that answer only makes this more impossible and ridiculous and alarming._

_"Come on!" the man in the tattered suit says, using his grip on Draco's elbows to give him a sharp pull. "Geronimo!"_

_And with that, with one more lurch, Draco is once again falling._

* * *

It takes Harry a moment to realize what it is he saw, and a moment longer to really comprehend it.

It had moved so fast that it almost eluded him. It was on all fours, glowing in a bright prism of colors, moving like sunlight through water.

Also it had fangs and was coated in blood.

"Where'd it go?"

And then Draco Malfoy is there, wearing a waistcoat and bright green tie and holding – _something_, something large and metal, like some kind of gun – and he is staring at Harry as though expecting an answer.

"Uh," Harry says.

"Get that stupid out of your throat, Potter!" he snaps. "Where'd it go?!"

"That…"

Harry points left.

Draco-Malfoy-in-a-waistcoat-with-a-gun looks briefly to where Harry is pointing, then back at him.

"Thanks," he says. "_Doctor!_"

"Coming!" returns an answering voice from the other side of the hedge circling Harry's front lawn. Draco-Malfoy-with-a-smart-green-tie takes off running in the general direction of left, and a moment later, a man with a large chin and a bowtie comes scrambling after him, pointing something with a tip that glows green.

"Wait," Harry says belatedly as his brain catches up with the rest of him. He takes off in a run after them. "Wait!"

"Boy, can that thing run!" the man in the bowtie shouts as he leaps over a low shrub, following Draco-Malfoy-in-shiny-hard-soled-shoes, who has just rounded a corner into a narrow alley between Harry's house and his neighbor's.

"It is a unicorn!" Draco-Malfoy-who-is-being-remarkably-calm-about-all-this shouts back. "Or at least it was!"

"That wasn't a unicorn!" Harry shouts with them as they round a corner out of the row of back gardens and into the large clearing surrounding the development.

"What the hell are you still doing here?" Draco-Malfoy-with-grown-out-hair demands, looking back at Harry – though only briefly, as they are now all running through the grassy, rocky field leading down to the creek where the neighborhood kids sometimes play. "Don't answer! Keep running!"

"Who's this?" the man in the bowtie asks, smiling brightly and wrenching around as they run so he can look at Harry. "Hello, I'm the Doctor!"

"Not now!" Draco-Malfoy-who-has-a-lot-of-explaining-to-do shouts at him.

Before Harry can righteously demand to know just what the fuck is going on, there's a tremendous sound like an unholy foghorn and a dazzling burst of color from the copse of trees on the other side of the creek.

"Remember," the-man-who-is-apparently-a-doctor says, "don't look at it directly!"

"Why not?" Harry asks as they skid down the ravine toward the creek.

"Blindness! Or possibly insanity. Depends on your retinas. You're a human, right?"

"_Not now, Doctor!_"

They go crashing through the edge of the forest, and Harry very nearly stops both of them on principle just to demand to know what in God's name they're talking about, but before he can, there is a renewed burst of color and all three of them stop.

"Eyes down!" the Doctor says, grabbing Draco by the shoulder with one hand and using the other to shield his own eyes. "Don't look at it!"

"I need to aim the tranquilizer!"

Harry squints and holds up his arm, but he can see it through the slats of his fingers, little bits and pieces – the long legs, the gleaming golden hooves, the skin glowing in an impossible prism of blinding colors, the long horn – and the fresh, arterial blood running down its massive fangs and splattered along it's neck.

"Fucking hell," Harry says, which he surmises is just about the only sensible reaction to seeing something like that.

The not-unicorn makes a deep, guttural sound, like a horse nickering but deeper. The light it emits seems to be charring the trunks of the trees near it, and only then is Harry aware of the nearing, radiating heat.

"It's almost in range," says Draco-Malfoy-who-is-bizarrely-in-control, and the massive gun he's holding beeps at an ever-hastening rate. "Almost – if I just—"

"Don't be a hero," the Doctor says severely. "Don't approach it. One step too close and the radiative heat will deep-fry you."

"It's so close—!"

All at once, there's a great, deep whinnying sound that rumbles in the air and the living earth. The not-unicorn rears up, kicking its hooves, and the light around it intensifies to such a degree that Harry feels almost like he is in an oven—

"Shit!"

The gun in Draco's arms goes off with a great burst of energy and the light and heat vanish just as abruptly as they arrived.

It takes a moment for Harry's eyes – and the rest of him – to readjust. When he does, he sees the not-unicorn sprawled on its side on the forest floor, still glowing, but much dimmer. Its skin is dusted with some kind of bluish particulate.

"What the _fuck_ just happened," Harry says, and it doesn't quite come out as a question.

"What is it with wizards being such _potty mouths?_" the Doctor asks.

Draco-Malfoy-who-is-panting-and-tossing-back-his-windswept-hair drops the heavy gun onto the undergrowth and heads toward the not-unicorn. "Seems safe to look at now," he says.

"Must be an artifact of conscious will," the Doctor says. "I'm going to start keeping a swear jar."

"You won't get a knut out of me."

"_Will someone please explain what just happened._"

"Keep your pants on, Boy Wonder," Draco-Malfoy-who-is-such-a-little-shithead answers, crouching down in front of the not-unicorn. "You're not in any danger. Not anymore, at least."

It's not easy for Harry to put a name to what he's feeling. Some bizarre and disarming combination of anger, confusion, fear, and the unmistakable feeling of being kicked in the head.

The Doctor crouches down next to Draco and runs the green-tipped thing he'd been running with – Harry notices that it looks rather like a wand, but thicker and shorter and made of metal – along the not-unicorn's body. It hums and buzzes.

"Anything?" Draco asks.

"Mutation," the Doctor answers.

"Deliberate?"

"I should hope so."

"The TARDIS practically killed us taking us here," Draco says, and before Harry can ask what in _God's_ name a TARDIS is— "rather without our input, I might add. So it must be interfacing with it somehow."

"It's not giving off nearly enough energy to be doing anything to the TARDIS," the Doctor answers dismissively.

"Then what dragged us down?"

"Maybe whoever mutated it."

Draco and the Doctor share a significant look.

"No, it's fine," Harry says. "No need to fill me in."

They both turn back to him.

"You didn't have to follow, Potter," Draco answers, and though his tone is tepid, Harry can detect traces of resentment. He rises to his full composure, brushing traces of the forest off his pinstripe trousers. "So far as I can see, your confusion and alarm is no one's fault but your own."

"So Draco Malfoy with a tranquilizer cannon blasts through my front garden chasing a mutated unicorn, and it's _my fault_ for caring enough to follow?"

"It's not my problem you never managed to shake your kneejerk hero complex," Draco returns with a sniff, grabbing the discarded gun and settling it on his hip.

Harry bristles. He is amazed, quietly, that even after the long years in which he never saw him, Malfoy still managed to retain his ability to get under his skin. "You don't have to have a hero complex to care about monsters rampaging through your neighborhood!"

"Do you to know each other?" the Doctor suddenly asks. His voice is a mite too chipper, like he's trying to forcibly deflate the tension in the conversation.

"Unfortunately," Draco answers, frowning, eyeing Harry. "Old friends."

"We were never friends," Harry says tightly.

"I'm glad to see you still have that keen ability to pick up on subtle sarcasm."

"Well, what a coincidence!" The Doctor claps his hands, rubs them together. "But we really should be going now. I think I've managed to pick up on a radiation signature that should lead us back to this creature's origin."

"Good," Draco says. "Let's follow it."

"I'm coming," Harry says.

"Like _fuck_ you're coming."

"Draco, language!" the Doctor chides.

"It's a bit personal, Malfoy! And besides, you _owe_ me an explanation."

"Oh, so it's about what I _owe_ you, is it?"

"This is awkward and should probably stop," the Doctor continues when he goes ignored.

"Yes, let's all talk about what the world owes Harry Potter, the grand savior, the hero of the light—!"

"Fuck you, Malfoy!"

"Not even in your _wettest_ of dreams, Potter," Draco says, leaning forward to punctuate his point, and his gray eyes flash silver and his bright blonde hair flashes in a shaft of moonlight through the trees. Harry notices, quite without meaning to, the remarkable way in which he's grown into all the harsh angles of his body.

"_Harry_ Potter?"

The Doctor suddenly inserts himself between them. Draco groans and spins on a heel to face away from the conversation and whips out – of all things – a Muggle mobile phone from his pocket, which he turns on and unlocks with a swipe of his thumb. Harry doesn't have time to ask how he knows how to use it, because the Doctor is very close to him now, looking him up and down.

"Harry James Potter? Boy-Who-Lived? Defeater of the Dark Lord?"

"Uh," Harry says.

"The very same," Draco says acidly, tapping through something that looks like Google Maps on the phone. "He was unbearable in school."

"You weren't Prince Charming yourself, Malfoy."

"Well!" The Doctor suddenly claps Harry on both shoulders, smiling manically. "Well, well, well! Harry Potter! This _is_ a surprise. Good to meet you! Good job saving the world!"

"Thanks?"

"Doctor, please stop," Draco says, "this conversation is physically painful to me."

The Doctor claps his hands once, as though struck with a sudden epiphany. "He should come with us!"

"_No,_" Draco says, spinning on a heel.

"Yes!" Harry answers. "I want to come; we need to report the psychopath who made that thing to the DMLE!"

"Well," the Doctor answers, "this is a _bit_ above their pay grade."

"And out of their fucking galactic cluster," Draco snaps. "Doctor, we can't take him with us."

"Why not?"

"Because whenever Potter and I are in the same area for more than ten minutes at a time, we have a tendency to rip each other apart!"

"You seem to be doing well so far," the Doctor said, "relatively speaking."

"I'm an auror, Malfoy."

"Of course you are," Draco says. "You are pathologically incapable of not saving the world."

"_Which means,_" he continues, glowering, "that I have an ethical responsibility to find the guy who did this and lock him up."

"An adventure with Harry Potter!" the Doctor says, beaming, which makes for a strange foil to the way Harry and Draco glare at each other. "This will bring my getting-into-trouble-with-famous-humans count up to triple digits!"

"Doctor," Draco groans, "don't make me do this."

"Don't be so sore," the Doctor says, patting Draco on the cheek. "It's good to face your demons!"

"So are we going?" Harry asks.

Draco's nose wrinkles in protest. He slaps his thumb against the screen of his mobile phone with undue force. "For the record," he says, "I protest tremendously." Then he turns on a heel and stares at the phone as he marches out of the trees, blonde hair flashing, navy sky shining with stars. "Also for the record, you're both terrible!"

"This is going to be great," the Doctor decides.

* * *

_They have to scale their way up a floor and run along great circular walls, but they manage to escape, crashing through a pair of doors and landing face down in water._

_In between everything else, there is a part of Draco that finds it funny how he managed to land in a river, after all – even if it didn't kill him._

_He lifts his head and sputters and coughs. He opens his eyes in time to see a large, blue box tumbling through pale lavender grass until it lands awkwardly on its side. Steam pours out of its open doors._

_"What the fuck," Draco says between coughs. "_What the fuck._"_

_"You're fine," says the man in the raggedy suit. "I'm fine, we're all fine. Everything is fine! There is absolutely no need to panic, probably."_

_"Will you _please_ tell me what—"_

_—and then Draco looks up and the question changes so abruptly it makes him dizzy—_

_"_Where the fuck are we?!_"_

_Because judging by the crimson sky, the pale violet grass, and the enormous, transparent mountain range growing out of the horizon, the answer to that question cannot possibly be anywhere on earth._

_"I have no idea!"_

_His voice is cheerful. Draco pulls himself up about of the river – it's really more like a creek, with clear water babbling over smooth river rocks – and tries to find his center of gravity._

_"Which is fine!" he continues. "It's completely fine that I don't know where we are. Considering the vastness of the universe, the fact that we landed someplace with breathable air is pretty lucky! Well, I say pretty lucky, the chances are actually infinitesimally small, but I think the TARDIS managed to active emergency protocols that—"_

_"I'm on another planet," Draco says. He leapt off a bridge and landed on another planet. That should not be possible, and yet there it is._

_Draco suddenly realizes that he is not so much searching for a center of gravity as he is for some proof that he's not losing his mind._

_"Yes, you are! And you're also slightly stranded. Just for a little while. Hello, I'm the Doctor!"_

_Draco looks at him deliriously. "Doctor who?"_

_"Yes."_

_In the spirit of it not by any means being the strangest thing he'd heard that day, Draco decides to let it go. "Okay."_

_"What's your name?"_

_"Draco Malfoy," he answers. "Did you say we're stranded?"_

_"Slightly stranded."_

_Draco's head swims. "What's the rule about being lost? Aren't you supposed to stay put until someone can find you?"_

_"Got friends who can hop galaxies?"_

_Draco shuts his mouth tightly._

_"Don't worry," the Doctor says. "As soon as my TARDIS is up and running again – and that shouldn't be too long, she's already started the self-repair cycle – I'll take you right back home. In the mean time, I'm a tiny bit curious about that."_

_The Doctor points right. Draco follows his gaze until he sees, rising up out of a dark blue forest, a mighty silver pyramid shining in the white sunlight. Draco has to squint at it for how bright it's gleaming._

_"What is that?" Draco asks despite himself and despite the fact that there are many more pressing questions._

_"Don't know," the Doctor answers. "Keen to find out?"_

_And the obvious answer is no. The obvious answer is absolutely no. Draco should be hiding or running or screaming to be taken home right now._

_But instead, Draco only says, "A little bit," because even though that is not the obvious answer, it is the only one that happens to be true._

_The Doctor grins at him and Draco wonders what he just started._

* * *

"What did you say your name was?" Harry asks.

"I told you, I'm the Doctor."

"No, your proper name."

"That _is_ my proper name."

"People just call you 'the Doctor'?"

"Usually."

"Right." Harry doesn't believe him, but thinks perhaps he should let that one go. "How did you meet Malfoy?"

"He fell into my swimming pool."

"What?"

"Stop talking, Potter," shouts Draco from up ahead, "your voice gives me a headache."

"More to the point," Harry continues, glaring at the back of Draco's head, "how can you stand to keep him around?"

"I quite like him," the Doctor says, apparently nonplussed that anyone would think otherwise. "He's clever. And he has very good fashion sense."

"Found it," Draco says.

They've arrived back on the street, down a ways from Harry's house. There's fewer cars than normal and a blue telephone box on the corner, but otherwise Harry can see nothing different. Draco tucks his phone into and pulls a key out of his front pocket.

"Found what?" Harry asks.

"I could have found it on my own," the Doctor insists, "but Draco was adamant about using an app to find it."

"I don't trust your sense of direction!" Draco says over his shoulder.

"You crash into a mountain _just once_," the Doctor says, "and suddenly you can't be trusted to navigate anything!"

"I still don't know where we are, what you're talking about, or what the hell is going on," Harry reminds them both tensely.

"Welcome to the explanation, Potter," Malfoy says, using the small silver key to unlock the door of the blue phone box. He pushes his way inside. The Doctor grins at Harry and pushes in after him.

Harry hesitates, then enters last.

Then he exits again, double checks the size of the telephone box, and – much more slowly this time – reenters.

What strikes Harry first is the colors. Deep golds, vibrant turquoise, bright bronze. The central pillar thrums softly, and there is a deep and low humming, almost like purring, rumbling along the floor beneath Harry's feet.

"This…" Harry says.

"Go on," the Doctor tells him, grinning and traipsing up toward the console. "You can say it."

"Spaceship," Harry finishes, fairly sure he forgot the verb.

"Well-spotted," Draco answers.

"This is a spaceship."

"The TARDIS!" the Doctor says. "Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

"I'm on a spaceship."

"Try to keep up, Potter," Draco snaps. "Doctor, you said you knew how to trace the source of the mutant."

"Yes!" He claps his hands, returns his attention to the console, begins pulling up large levers and hitting buttons. "It was mutated with a type of radiation not normally found on earth, so I should be able to do a quick scan for sources of it without much interference."

"Are you an alien?" Harry asks.

"_Try to keep up, Potter,_" Draco snaps. "Honestly, always three steps behind!"

"You might want to hold onto something," says the Doctor.

"Why do I—" Harry begins, just as the engine roars to life and Harry falls onto his face.

"Geronimo!"

* * *

"I'm putting a stop to it!" Moist says. "I should have put a stop to it ages ago – when you first started making these – these _things_."

He stands hunched over his desk. On the other side of the thick, tempered glass, a doe screams as it is ripped to shreds by the second generation of his newest creation.

"Putting a stop to it," he returns without looking around.

"This isn't who you are, man!" Moist continues. "This isn't what you got into the villain business for! You started this because you wanted to _change_ the world, not to destroy it!"

He laughs, once, but it's devoid of any humor. He remembers those days. They feel distant and out of focus.

"It's killed _twelve people,_" Moist says, "and that's just the one! You've got to stop this now!"

"Stop it?" He turns. Something about him sends Moist recoiling, flinching away from him. "I'm just getting started."

"This is why the Evil League of Evil exiled you, man," Moist says. "This is why we had to come to England in the first place! What happened to you?"

All at once, cool cynicism rises to a boil and spills out of him as blinding fury. He sweeps his hand across the table, knocking pages of notes and delicate instruments on the floor, clashing and clattering.

"_You know what happened to me!_"

Moist has recoiled even further. He's staring up at him with a resoluteness belied by his wide-eyed fear.

"You've got to let her go, man," Moist says softly.

He bares his teeth and pulls his goggles down over his eyes. "Release the brood," he says.

Moist tenses. "No."

"_Release the brood,_" he repeats, more loudly.

"I won't have any part in this!"

There's a tremendous, bellowing whinny. He turns in time to see it rear up, kick its hooves, spread its mighty wings.

"Shit, man," Moist says weakly, "you gave them _wings?_"

"All 2,000 of them."

"Billy—"

"My name," he says, reaching out for the large switch labelled "ESCAPE HATCH" on the wall, "is _Dr. Horrible._"

Before he can pull it, there arrives a low, continuous wailing sound.

"The intruder alarm?" Moist says, turning to look toward the wall full of security camera feeds.

He curls his hand into a fist. He does not have time for this. Whoever it was stupid enough to barge into his lab will soon and thoroughly regret it.

* * *

"Mad scientist's laboratory," Draco says, hands on his hips, as he takes slow stock of the room. "I like it."

Harry stumbles backwards out of the ship – the TARDIS – and does his best to wrap his head around the fact _that he just rode in a spaceship_.

"Not mad at all," the Doctor says, crossing the room to examine several hand-drawn diagrams pinned to the wall. "Nanotechnology, supercomputers, quantum mathematics – whoever owns this place has quite the mind."

Slightly more difficult to comprehend than the fact that Harry just rode in a spaceship is the fact that it was, quite possibly, the absolute most amazing thing to ever happen to him in his entire life.

"Still," Draco says, "not hard to see how a bloodthirsty mutant unicorn could come out of this place."

Slowly, Harry forces himself to look around. The walls are stacked high with strange devices that glow eerily under the fluorescent lights, the tables strewn with careful instruments and haphazard piles of notes. It is brilliant, fascinating, but also cold and sterile. Harry's never seen anything quite like it, and it's amazing.

"So what's the plan?" Draco asks. "Find the mutant unicorns, round them up, ship them off to an animal sanctuary planet?"

"There are animal sanctuary planets?" Harry asks before he can stop himself.

"Probably," the Doctor answers, and all at once Harry wants to go see one.

And then, putting a very abrupt end to the conversation—

_Crash!_

The force that hits them is so sudden and so powerful that all three of them go flying backwards – or, more specifically, away from the giant crater now carved out of the wall.

"Damn," says a voice that Harry can only barely detect through the ringing in his ears, "missed."

"_Jesus_, man!" someone else says. "You can't go firing that thing indoors!"

As his eyes readjust from the flash of light, Harry feels a hand grab him by the back of his jacket and drag him around to the back of the TARDIS.

"Do us all a favor and keep your mouth shut, Moist."

"You just destroyed half your lab!"

"Come out, come out, intruders!"

"Rude!" Draco says, wiping soot off his sleeve.

"Apologies," the assailant answers. "I'm sort of a shoot-first-ask-questions-later type."

"Nice to meet you, I'm the Doctor!" shouts the Doctor.

"I am stupefyingly uninterested in your names!"

There's a deep click and a humming as their assailant presumably cocks the device the device that just nearly killed them. Harry cranes his neck and catches sight of the massive, steaming pile of rubble now dominating one wall of the room.

"We're big fans of your work!" Draco calls, reaching into his waistcoat and producing his wand. "Was that thing a unicorn at any point at all?"

"A few months ago," he admits.

Harry catches sight of his reflection in the polished steel of a filing cabinet. He's in a long red lab coat with tinted goggles pulled over his eyes. He leans over to the Doctor and mutters, "He's coming this way."

"You know," Draco says, slowly rising to his feet while keeping his back pressed flush against the wall of the TARDIS, "they say anyone who hurts a unicorn is cursed."

"I was cursed a long time ago," he says.

"And you just unleashed it on an unsuspecting suburban neighborhood?" the Doctor asks. "Why?"

"That was just a test run," he answers. "The main event will surely be a grander affair—"

Abruptly, and to some apparent protest from the Doctor, Draco spins around and shoots out a bright disarming spell. The spell hits with a clatter. Harry stands up and spins as well, producing his own wand.

"Blimey, Malfoy, when did _you_ become the sort of person to leap into danger?"

Draco bristles. "Fuck you, that's when!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry catches the man in the red lab coat – scruffy blonde hair, he noticed, and refuses-to-leave-the-house pale – reaching into an inner pocket. Harry spins and throws up a shield just in time—

_Crack!_

—to catch a burst of red light and send it ricocheting away.

"Was that a _laser gun?_" Harry can't help but ask. "I didn't know Muggles had invented _laser guns._"

The attacker doesn't answer. He aims his second shot up; it hits one of the dangling fluorescent lights, and with a tremendous sound and a brief flash of light, the room goes dark.

"Is that why you've come?" he asks, voice echoing through the darkness. "You've come to stop me?"

"If we have to," the Doctor's voice answers. "If you're really planning on unleashing more of those creatures."

They're answered by a short, humorless laugh. "And just how do you intend to do that?"

Harry's eyes struggle to adjust to the new darkness. He nearly casts a quick _lumos_ before deciding against it – best not to give away his position.

"Oh!" says a second voice. "I know this one! There's a self-destruct protocol!"

"What?" Draco says.

"Moist, what the hell!"

"It's in the main control room! You can destroy all the mutants!"

"Moist, you are the _worst henchman ever!_ You don't just go around saying that stuff to intruders!"

"Thank you, Moist!" Draco says. "That's very useful!"

"This is why I get for choosing seniority over experience in my henchmen!"

"Look, Billy," says the henchman – Moist, apparently, "I love you and everything, but you're in a downward, self-destructive spiral! If someone doesn't stop you, I don't think anything ever will!"

"_Billy?_" Draco repeats. "Billy the mad scientist?"

"_My name is Dr. Horrible!_"

"Also, you're trying to destroy the world!" Moist adds. "That's bad, I probably should have said that first."

Harry feels a hand on his arm. "Run!"

"_Lumos!_"

And so they run.

_Crash!_ Another massive blast from Dr. Horrible's massive cannon. They stumble but keep running, vaulting over pieces of debris, following the light at the end of Draco's wand.

"Main control room is always in the center!" the Doctor says as the duck and weave away from another massive _crash_ that thunders against a wall. "Left!"

They turn left, bursting into a door (appropriately labelled "MAIN CONTROL ROOM," with a sticky-note subtitle of "DO NOT USE THIS COMPUTER FOR PRINTING!") leading into a room with one enormous wall made up of nothing but monitors.

Draco casts a strong shielding spell just before there's another great _crash!_ The metal door caves inward, but Draco's magic manages to hold it in place.

"Doctor!" he says, "do something sciencey!"

"Working on it!"

The Doctor is already standing at the computer, bent over the keyboard, tapping furiously. _Crash!_

Harry casts another layer of the shielding spell over top of Draco's, bracing both hands on the warped metal for good measure. "Is it always like this with him?" he asks despite himself.

"Pretty much," Draco answers. _Crash!_

"Password!" the Doctor says. "There's always a password!"

"Can you override it?" Draco asks. _Crash!_

"With enough _time_," the Doctor answers, "but most of the technology in this place is in a sonic cage, and plus—"

"The password is Weird Al Rocks!" comes a voice from the other side of the door.

"_Goddammit, Moist!_"

"All one word!" Moist continues. "You have to use a 'Z', though!"

Before Harry has a chance to laugh, there's a high-pitched beeping. Then the entire room is flooded with pulsing red light.

"SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED," an automated voice informs them. "THREE MINUTES UNTIL DETONATION." And then, inexplicably, AC/DC starts playing, blasting over the same speakers that just announced an explosion.

"He programmed music into his own self-destruct sequence," Draco says. "Of course he did."

"Not a bad way to go out," Harry admits. He recognizes the song as Thunderstruck.

"Notice anything absent?" the Doctor asks.

Harry frowns. Draco looks around the room before he realizes—

"He's stopped trying to break the door down."

"Which is either a very good thing or a very bad thing," the Doctor says.

Draco approaches the door and slowly – very slowly – pulls it open. It takes some doing, as the door is by that point badly warped and unwilling to move on its bent hinges.

The first thing Harry notices is the man who can only be Moist, unconscious and slumped against the wall. Draco lunges for him at once and grabs his shoulder.

"Oy." He shakes him. "All right?"

Moist grunts and rolls his head to the side.

"No pressure or anything," Draco says, "but this entire building is going to explode."

There's a sharp whistle from behind. At once, they all spin.

Standing at the far end of the hallway is Dr. Horrible, awash in pulsing red light, goggles gleaming. He no longer has his cannon.

"This doesn't have to end with you dying!" the Doctor says, stepping forward. "Come with us, turn yourself in, you can make it out alive!"

"I crossed that bridge a long time ago. There's no going back for me," Dr. Horrible says. "And there's no going back for you, either."

He presses a button on a small device in his hand. There's a great groaning of metal and the sound of crumbling stone.

From behind him, a ten-foot tall robotic tyrannosaurus crashes through into the hallway.

"_Holy fucking shit,_" Harry says, and it's terrifying and everything, and Harry knows he needs to run, but he can't help but also realize how _completely awesome it is_.

"Oh, man, he got out Sparky," Moist says, who is apparently coming to. "We're fucked, man."

Sparky the robotic tyrannosaurus lets loose a mighty, mechanical roar that rattles the walls and sends vibrations through the cement floor. Its teeth, Harry notices, though he wishes he hadn't, are made from sharpened pieces of serrated metal.

"_Run!_" the Doctor screams, not for the first time that day, and they run.

The sound of Sparky running after them sounds less like running and more like great claps of thunder. They scramble as fast as they can, but it's hard to keep away from something with a stride longer than you are tall, as Harry quickly discovers.

As they run, Harry feels a hand on his arm, gripping tightly.

"Potter," Draco says through his labored breathing.

He looks over at him. Draco is holding a tiny racing broom in his hand – it must be under a shrinking spell, because it expands rapidly in his hand.

"What—?"

"Remember the Room of Requirement?"

Memories of fiendfyre and Horcruxes surface in his mind. He knows what Draco's asking.

"You've got a plan?"

"Don't ask stupid questions, Potter!"

"Don't fuck it up, then, Malfoy!"

Harry grabs the broom from Draco's hand and leaps onto it mid-sprint. Draco grabs him by the shoulder and swings on behind him and all at once they take off into the air.

"_Draco!_" Harry can hear the Doctor calling, but his voice is fading as they make a broad arc away from him in the larger room they just reached.

"Get me as close to the head as you can!" Draco shouts into his ear, over the wailing of the siren, the roaring of the robot dinosaur, and the destruction of the laboratory as Sparky thrashes through it like a bear in a spiderweb.

It's been years since Harry's really ridden like this, but it all comes back to him without protest. He stays far to the right at first, out of reach, then makes a dramatic turn and dives right for it.

Draco leaps off the broom in midair and lands on top of Sparky's head – it immediately roars and starts to buck and thrash. Draco holds steady, but Harry regrets agreeing to this plan.

"_Solvitas totalum!_" he shouts, wand pointed straight down at its head, and with a flash of magic—

The sound Sparky makes is deafening. Draco's magic rends it right down the middle in a brilliant, tremendous shower of sparks.

Then Sparky falls, taking Draco down with it. Harry feels a sudden clutch of dread and dives straight down on the broom.

"Malfoy!"

"Draco!" the Doctor calls. "That was stupid and terrible, and also brilliant, and don't ever do it again! Draco!"

Harry tumbles off the broom and races toward the massive pile of twisted metal and debris—

"I'm fine!" comes Draco's familiar voice. "That was deliberate!"

"_Enough!_"

Dr. Horrible is standing at the mouth of the hallway. A broken robotic dinosaur lies in a heap at his feet, his laboratory is flooded with red light, and AC/DC blasts through the room.

"It was cute at first, but you are not getting out of this laboratory alive!" Dr. Horrible shouts, hefting up the canon from his side and pointing it decisively at Draco's face. "I will not allow you to come in here and destroy—!"

_Clang!_

Dr. Horrible crumbles all at once, collapsing on top of the canon and the broken remnants of his dinosaur.

Moist is standing over him with a shovel.

"The greatest technology in the world," Draco says, "thwarted by a garden shovel."

"He's really very nice once you get to know him," Moist assures them.

"I'm sure," Draco says, not sounding convinced.

"He's just been in sort of a funk," Moist continues. "His girlfriend died and there was all this other stuff – but when a genius gets into a funk, robot dinosaurs happen, so…"

"You can tell us all about it when we leave!" the Doctor says. "You know, getting away from the explosion!"

It takes Moist a minute. "Oh. Oh! Right!"

* * *

Dr. Horrible is unconscious on the verge. The laboratory is a pile of rubble several hundred miles away. And Harry's adrenaline levels will not even off.

"That was _amazing,_" Harry says.

"Your enthusiasm is embarrassing," Draco answers, pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket.

"I'll figure out what to do with him," Moist tells the Doctor. "I promise he's really not dangerous when he hasn't got any of his toys, just really angry and in a lot of pain."

"I'll have to check up on you to make sure," the Doctor says, patting his shoulder. "Make sure he gets over his girlfriend before you let him near any more robotic dinosaurs, eh?"

"So it's always like this?" Harry knows he asked before, but the question, he thinks, bears repeating. "You just fly around space and get into trouble?"

"Space and time," Draco says, flipping through his mobile phone.

"Space _and time?_"

"Thanks for your help," Moist says, smiling weakly at the Doctor. "You don't know it, but you've really helped him.

"Glad to hear it!"

"That's incredible! I can't – that's – I want—!"

Draco raises both eyebrows at him.

Harry realizes, quite abruptly, that he wants to go. His world is suddenly full of color after so many years in monochrome – dead-end job, wife he's fallen out of love with, a quiet life he was so sure he wanted when he was nineteen and stupid, but now—

"I have… I have a wife," he says. "I've got a life, I have…"

"I'm sure that made sense in your head," Draco says. "Well, Potter, it's been… something."

"Yeah," Harry says, the adrenaline fading, the rush deflating. He looks toward the TARDIS, toward the Doctor helping Moist load Dr. Horrible's unconscious body into a trolley (It had been in the TARDIS attic, for reasons the Doctor had not been able to adequately explain). "Yeah…"

"Give us a ring if you ever have a free weekend," Draco says. "We made a good team back there. Maybe you can tag along for a turn."

Harry looks back, startled. "Really?"

"No, go fuck yourself."

Harry glares at him. He knows that they've been arguing this whole time and that he should, objectively, not care at all – but he does, and he's upset, and he doesn't really want to admit it and he _definitely_ doesn't want Draco to know, so he says, "Slytherin dickhole."

"Gryffindor bastard."

"Nice fellow!" the Doctor says, heading back over as Moist wheels Dr. Horrible down the street. "Hopefully he does right by his friend. Ready to go, Draco?"

"You have no idea how ready I am," Draco says. "Let's get as far away from earth as possible. Maybe this Potter-induced headache will fade with enough distance."

He pushes into the TARDIS.

The Doctor laughs nervously. "He's charming."

"Only when he wants to be," Harry says. "Which is never, in my experience."

"I think he just doesn't like confronting his past," the Doctor says. "Well! It's been a pleasure, Mr. Potter. _Lovely_ to meet you. Thanks for agreeing to look the other way with Mr. Horrible."

"I'll keep an eye on him in case he has a robot dinosaur relapse, I suppose."

The Doctor shakes his hand vigorously and steps into the TARDIS before Harry can say _wait_ or _would it be okay if I went with you?_

Because he can't. Because he has to be here. Because he has a wife and a job and a life to get back to.

Even though he does not want to.


	2. Under Deep

"My Lord Hand!"

He stops mid-step, turns around. He recognizes the guard rushing toward him, though he's quicker to recognize the look of urgency and the only possible purpose of his visit.

"Ser Adonas," he greets. "I can surmise but one reason for your hunting me down in a dark hallway at this unsuitable hour."

"There's been another one," he tells him as he stumbles to a stop in front of him. In the torchlight, his smooth copper skin is edged with golden.

Tyrion frowns. "Where?"

"In the library."

"Take me."

Ser Adonas needs no convincing. He spins on the heel of his boot and hurries away. Tyrion keeps pace.

"It's the same as all the others," Ser Adonas says, fussing with the edge of his golden cloak as a child might fuss with a blanket. "That's three so far. People are starting to notice."

"People will always notice death in the palace," Tyrion answers.

"We are running out of excuses," the knight continues. "A chambermaid is one thing, a squire, but this…"

Tyrion had not been far from the library to begin with and they arrive in short order. The room is wide and dark and lit with naught but a massive shaft of silver moonlight that comes streaming through the window. It takes Tyrion a moment to find what he's looking for.

"Scholar Joren?"

"He was always so kind," Ser Adonas whispers. "And so very smart."

"He was more than smart, he was the most talented and brilliant scholar under the employ of the King."

Tyrion approaches the body gingerly. Indeed, this one seems just like the last two. Scholar Joren's skin is flush pale, his eyes wide as though in shock, his limbs splayed over the stone. He lies in a pile of books knocked to the floor, and his face is – and, Tyrion suspects, ever will be – set into an expression of permanent horror.

"Gods have mercy," Ser Adonas mutters, before reciting a quick prayer.

"It is like the others," Tyrion says. Carefully, he reaches one hand down to the scholar's chest. With one firm press, water comes spilling out of his mouth. Tyrion recoils. "Drowned on dry land."

"It's impossible," Ser Adonas says.

"Obviously it is quite possible," Tyrion says. "You are staring at the evidence that it is possible."

"What are we to do, My Lord Hand?"

Tyrion doesn't answer. He bends down again to take a drop of the water between his thumb and forefinger, which he draws to his nose to inhale.

"Salt water," he says. "Always salt water."

"We cannot avoid it any longer," Ser Adonas insists. "We must tell the King."

"To accomplish what?" Tyrion snaps, looking back at him. "If you think alerting my nephew to these murders will do any good, you ought to be stripped of your cloak for gross incompetence." Tyrion remains unconvinced that Joffrey doesn't have something to do with the deaths, the little bastard. He wouldn't put it past him.

"Then what's to be done?"

Tyrion straightens. He doesn't have an answer, of course. He stares down at the wide-eyed face again, then bends a last time to close the scholar's eyes.

"He had so much promise," Tyrion said. "His was one of the finest minds in Westeros. He would have made this world so much better."

He can hear the sliding of metal on metal as Ser Adonas shifts uncomfortably in his armor. "Did My Lord Hand know him?"

He and Scholar Joren had gotten along famously. He was one of the few people in the castle intelligent enough to uphold stimulating conversation and wise enough to see past Tyrion's stature and deformities.

Tyrion did not tell this to Ser Adonas, of course. All he did was make a silent vow in his head – he would find whoever was doing this.

* * *

_The giant silver pyramid, as it turned out, was full of zombies._

_Or at least, a close approximation to zombies. They were blue-skinned and had large, curling feelers growing out from the tops of their heads, but were in all respects besides most definitely walking dead. They where shambling, groaning, utterly impervious to pain, and seemed to have a keen taste for flesh._

_And Draco would have been terrified – he probably should have been – but the trouble of the matter was that he was a little bit too busy having fun._

_He would have felt crazy for having so much fun while running from flesh-eating alien zombies through a silver city on an alien planet but for the fact that the Doctor – whoever he was – seemed to be having just as much fun._

_They ran over rooftops and explored ancient tombs and blew up zombies and saved the world – and that was all before Draco had a chance to catch his breath._

_By the time both suns were setting over the city, washing the silver buildings with gleaming orange light, they are sitting on a rooftop overlooking the celebration following the eradication of the undead threat. Draco is sore and winded and bleeding in a few places, but an entire city is safe and Draco is smiling._

_"You're good at this!"_

_Draco turns in time to see the Doctor approaching with two mugs full of a frothy drink the locals are enjoying down below them in the town square. He sits down next to Draco on the edge of the roof._

_"Good at what?" Draco asks, taking the drink._

_"This," the Doctor repeats. "You know, handling everything. Most people wouldn't have run head first into a horde of undead."_

_Draco laughs. "Do you reckon?"_

_"It's not every day that someone like you falls into my TARDIS."_

_"I didn't fall," Draco says before he can stop himself. He regrets saying it at once._

_The Doctor raises both eyebrows. "No?"_

_Draco looks forward and down, at the celebration. This, he thinks, was the strangest part of all. A few short hours ago, he had been on the edge – quite literally – of suicide, and now here was, on some bizarre field of victory, a million miles from home and, for the first time in months, happy._

_There is still an ache in him, he knows. Deep down, writhing at the dark core of him, eating away like a plague. But for the first time in years – for the first time since the War – he feels the pleasant pain, like feeling returning to a numb limb._

_"No," Draco says. Perhaps he shouldn't say._

_The Doctor doesn't answer, but Draco thinks he knows. In any case, he doesn't bring it up._

_"Well," the Doctor continues, "regardless, you've shown your quality, Draco Malfoy."_

_Behind them, there's a sudden pulsing whine. They both turn, but the Doctor is quicker about it. That strange blue box is there again, upright this time, having appeared directly behind them on the roof._

_"Ah!"_

_He finishes off his mug of minty froth and climbs to his feet._

_"She's done with the self-repair cycle!"_

_"That's your ship?" Draco asks, abandoning his own mug and rising with him._

_"The TARDIS," the Doctor says, fishing a key from his pocket. "Goes all over the universe!" He unlocks the door and steps inside._

_Draco hesitates, then follows._

_In the initial pandemonium of his arrival, he hadn't had much of a chance to see it properly. Now that he can, it takes his breath away._

_"Oh, look at you," the Doctor croons. "I love it when she resets her interface. Always a surprise."_

_Gold and turquoise and bronze and green. Hard geometric lines blending seamlessly with arches and parabolas. A central pillar glowing and humming. It's beautiful – the most beautiful thing Draco's ever seen._

_"She dropped us off here at random," the Doctor continues, hurrying up tot he console and eagerly flipping levers and hitting buttons. "In a crisis, she drops off passengers at the nearest habitable planet, which happened to be this one."_

_Draco wants to say something like "it's incredible" or "I've never seen anything like it," but he can't make the words form. He stares up at the vaulted ceiling, awed beyond articulation._

_"All that – the zombies, the temple, the ruins – just on accident!" the Doctor says. He turns, fixes Draco with a smile. "Imagine where she could take you on _purpose_."_

_Draco forces his eyes to refocus. He still feels strangely breathless._

_"Are you offering?"_

_"Depends," the Doctor said. "Are you interested?"_

_The might central pillar oscillates, as if tempting him._

_Draco wets his lips, smiles. The darkness that nearly killed him has never seemed so far away._

_"Oh, yes."_

* * *

After five days' absence, Harry returns to his home on Sackham's Way.

He supposes that he should not be surprised that his long absence has gone more or less unnoticed by his wife. Indeed, when he enters the siting room for the first time since last week, he finds her sitting in her usual chair, and she looks up at him with an expression of innocent confusion.

"Oh," she says. "Harry. You're back."

"Yeah," he answers. "I am."

The silence that follows is more telling than words ever could be. Harry remembers a time when those blue eyes of hers would melt the heart from him, burn him up, pull him apart at the seams. Now he look sat them and all he feels is a strange and distant nostalgia, a quiet longing for things gone by.

"I think we should get a divorce," he says.

Ginny is silent a moment. She carefully shuts the book in her lap, sets it aside, then rises to her feet and meets his eyes.

"Harry," she says, "I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

"All I'm saying is the last time we set the coordinates to random, we were nearly vaporized by space slugs."

The Doctor pulls up a large lever with a _clank_. "That won't happen this time."

"You know how randomness works, right?"

"Also they weren't space slugs. There were arthropods."

"I notice you're not defending your we-won't-be-vaporized-by-space-slugs argument."

"Well, what do you want me to do? Randomized location with a no-space-slug-vaporization filter?"

Draco raises both eyebrows. "If you could do that, it would take a load off my mind, yes."

The engines begin to oscillate and Draco, who had been reclining on the pilot's chair, nearly tumbles off but for a quick grip on the back.

"What is life without the looming threat of vaporization by space slugs?" the Doctor asks, as though it's a grand philosophical question, and Draco rolls his eyes so hard it physically hurts. "It's the knowledge of ever-present danger that keeps things interesting!"

"Is _that_ what you tell yourself?"

"We'll be fine!" the Doctor says, loud enough to be heard over the groan and rumble of the TARDIS. "We have an impeccable track record so far!"

"The gambler's dilemma," Draco returns. "Either we're on a winning streak or overdue for a loss."

Just as abruptly as the trip started, it ends. Draco rights himself and straightens the front of his Alexander McQueen waistcoat.

"I meant to ask," the Doctor says.

"Hm?" Draco heads for the door. When he pulls it open— "_Merlin's tits_ that's bright."

"How long have you and Harry Potter known each other?"

"I protest the fact that we are still talking about him," Draco says, reaching into one of the Doctor's pockets and producing the pair of Coach sunglasses he stored there – the Doctor's pockets are wonderful for storage, much larger on the inside – and slips them onto his nose. "But we met when we were both eleven. Why?"

The Doctor steps out behind him and locks the TARDIS door. They've landed on a hill overlooking a great and sprawling city, early morning, its metal roofs gleaming in the blinding glare of the sun. Draco could hear the distant, unmistakable sounds of commerce from the main artery far below them – of haggling, of merchants shouting their goods, of town criers.

"I don't know," the Doctor answers, somewhat belatedly. "Just a nagging sense of something I can't quite name."

"This city is beautiful," Draco remarks.

The Doctor breathes in deeply. "Wood fire and salt," he says. "Teetering on the edge of industrialism."

"Quite human-like, aren't they?" Draco asks, watching as a young woman passes with a child hanging off her arm.

"It's a fairly common evolutionary template," the Doctor says. "You know, the whole two-arms, two-legs, one-head thing. Good for adaptability."

Draco opens his mouth to answer, when quite abruptly there is a high-pitched, frantic scream.

He and the Doctor both turn towards it at once. So far as Draco can pinpoint, it seems to be coming from one of the many narrow wooden buildings lining the street.

Draco does not need to ask; nearly before he does, the Doctor takes off running toward the source of the sound.

The building seems to belong to an apothecary, going by the rows of tonics and unguents and salves displayed in the front window. The double doors stand open, and already a crowd is gathering, massing near the entrance and murmuring variations of the same question – _what was that?_

The Doctor pushes his way to the front and makes it inside just as a woman comes staggering out from the back room, face ashen.

Draco lunges to catch her by the elbows before she collapses. "Easy, easy! What's wrong?"

"Maester Serevin—" she begins, words catching in her throat.

"Where is he?" the Doctor asks, and all she can do is point one trembling hand through the open door. Draco hands the woman off to another woman nearby before following the Doctor through.

Through a back laboratory and up a narrow flight of stairs is a bedroom. Lying on the floor is a man, ashen white, eyes wide, mouth open. He is, plainly, painfully, obviously dead.

"Shit," Draco mutters.

"Language," the Doctor answers, though without his usual verve.

"What happened to him?"

The Doctor crouches down beside the body. He's still wearing night clothes, Draco notices, a long sleeping shirt and slippers. He's clutching an unlit candle in one hand.

"He must have seen heard his attacker coming," the Doctor surmises.

"Got up in the middle of the night," Draco elaborates, "tried to light a candle. Then something got him."

"Do you notice something strange?"

"Plenty."

The Doctor leans down a bit lower to sniff the body.

"Merlin, Doctor, you can't go around sniffing corpses!"

He puts a hand to the chest and presses down hard. Water comes spilling up out of its mouth – it's surprising enough to send Draco taking a half-step back in surprise.

"Water?"

"Salt water. He drowned."

"A story up?" Draco asks. "In the middle of the city?"

"Apparently. And I'll tell you something else…" He lifts his head again, looks around the shabby, nondescript bedroom. "There's a weird hydrocarbon still hanging in the air… something…"

Draco hears heavy feet tromping up the stairs and turns just in time to see a man in gleaming armor burst into the bedroom. He has a long golden cloak and a broadsword over his back.

"Ay, gods," he says at once, "another one." He sounds winded – he must have ran when he heard the panic.

The Doctor rises to his full composure. "Another?"

The guard's eyes linger on the corpse for an overlong moment before returning to the Doctor. "Who are you?"

"Hello, I'm the Doctor."

"Draco Malfoy." He flashes his best disarming smile. "Charmed."

"Do you know the deceased?"

All three of them glance back down at the corpse reflexively.

"No," the Doctor answers. "We're just sort of passing through."

"Then by the authority of the Kingsguard, you're ordered to vacate," he says at once.

"Not to worry, soldier," the Doctor answers, tucking a hand into his pocket to produce his psychic paper, which he flashes to the guard. "We're supposed to be here."

The guard glances at it, then does a doubletake. "You're the one the Lord Hand summoned!"

Draco and the Doctor share a quick glance.

"Yes," the Doctor says. "That's me."

"And not a moment too soon," the guard says on the crest of an exhale. He looks down. "This is the fourth one."

"Fourth?" Draco asks.

"Aye, m'lord, though this is the first outside the Red Keep."

"Quick succession?" Draco asks.

"It's always too quick," he answers with a frown. "I'll have the silent sisters summoned to attend the body – but for now, you both should come with me to the Red Keep. The Lord Hand was very specific that you were to be brought to hime as soon as possible."

Draco worries, briefly, about being introduced to someone so important under false pretense, but after several months of travel with the Doctor, he'd grown more than confident in their ability to get out of trouble unscathed.

"Right, of course," the Doctor says. "To the Red Keep!"

The guard nods and tromps back downstairs. Draco can hear him shouting for the crowd to disperse. He leans over to the Doctor.

"What's the Red Keep?"

"No idea," the Doctor answers "I suppose we're about to find out."

* * *

"You wanted to see me?"

Kingsley Shacklebolt looks up from the parchment he'd been reading. "Harry," he says. "Come on in."

Harry enters. His office is saturated with the scent of strong Irish breakfast tea and gleaming with sunlight streaking in through the window.

"I got your letter of resignation."

Harry suddenly knows what Shacklebolt is going to say, so he beats him to the punch:

"Yes," Harry says, "I'm sure."

Shacklebolt frowns at him. "But are you?" he asks. "You've got to admit that this is strange, Harry."

"Just from the outside," he answers.

"_Harry,_" he says, more severely. "You leave your wife, you quit your job, you move out of the country – have you ever heard of a psychological fugue?"

"I'm not having a psychological fugue," Harry assures him.

"You were married," he insists, "_settled_. You were on the fast track to become Head Auror!"

"I don't want to be Head Auror," Harry says. "It's a desk job, Shacklebolt; you know I could never really be happy at a desk job."

"You could do a lot of good as Head Auror!"

"I could do a lot of good other places, too."

"Like Cardiff?"

There's a very large vein to this story that Harry can't – and shouldn't – tell Shacklebolt about, of course. He can't tell him about his frantic searching for the Doctor, about his discovery of UNIT, of all the strings he had to pull just to get someone there to listen. Over the past few weeks it had become a messy tangle of secrets and lies of omission just to get his foot in the door, to get the ball rolling on what he wanted. Now that he really had a starting point, he was not going to let anyone – Shacklebolt least of all – talk him out of it.

"Yes," Harry says. "Like Cardiff."

"What is it you're hoping to find there, Harry?" he asks. "What's in Cardiff that you can't find here?"

Harry doesn't answer immediately. It's a good question. Not because he doesn't know the answer (he certainly does), but because he doesn't know how to put it into words.

"Something I lost," Harry says after a moment. "Something that woke me up and reminded me of everything I wanted for myself."

Shacklebolt sighs. "Harry…"

"I don't know if I can find it," Harry admits, "but I'd be betraying myself if I didn't at least try."

"Harry, this is crazy!"

Harry sighs. He's not doing a good job of explaining this, and he knows he has to. Shacklebolt deserves an explanation.

"There's a word in German called Augenblick."

"What?"

"It literally translates to 'in the blink of an eye,' but it has more meaning than that," he says. "It means a certain moment in time – short, almost instantaneous – that changes everything.

"Six weeks ago, I had an Augenblick. It was brief and it was mad and it was dangerous but it changed _everything,_" he says. "Something incredible burst into my life and upended everything and then it left again just as quickly as it came. And I have to get it back. I have to at least _try_. Because I've never needed anything quite so badly as the feeling and the meaning and the rush that Augenblick gave me."

Shacklebolt is frowning at him, drumming his long fingers on the edge of his desk.

"So I'm sorry," Harry says. "I know you were grooming me for Head Auror. I know you wanted great things from me. But I'll never forgive myself if I don't do this."

Shacklebolt sighs. He doesn't seem like he understands, but there is at least a certain look of resignation on his face.

"I hope you find it, then, I suppose," he says.

Harry smiles weakly. "So do I," he answers.

* * *

The Red Keep, as it turns out, is a castle.

Draco has never seen anything quite like it, and he's been around more of the universe than most. It is a massive red dagger slicing up into the sky. It rises up out of the horizon as soon as the view is clear enough, as soon as they are escorted into the main artery of the city. It looms down over the foot traffic like a great pillar, beautiful and imposing and grim like a mighty wall of flame.

"I like it," Draco decides.

"You would," the Doctor answers.

"It reminds me of Hogwarts," he says. "But redder."

The guard in the gold cloak leads them right up to it, and as if sensing the graveness of their tidings, the crowds filtering in and out part for them like reeds by a current.

The inside is no less impressive. It is decadent and severe all at once, ornate yet somehow subdued, with stone walls embellished with filigree, handsome but simple furniture, stained glass. It's the subtle sort of quality that emphasizes itself with restraint.

"Remind me," the Doctor says, once they're in a hallway far enough away from anyone else, "the Lord Hand – what's his name?"

The guard looks back at them, as though surprised they don't know.

"Tyrion Lannister, of course."

"Oh, of course," the Doctor says. "Must have slipped my mind."

"He's anxious to get this whole matter sorted," the guard says, moving down a well-memorized path through the labyrinthine halls. "Before it becomes an even larger problem."

"Understandably," Draco returns.

"This is the Tower of the Hand."

They've come to a stop outside a large, but closed, door. The guard unlocks it with a large brass key.

"Go straight up," he says. "Lord Lannister will want to see you right away."

"Splendid. Thank you."

Draco starts up first. Just on the other side of the door is a curving stone staircase, lit insufficiently with wall-mounted candelabra. It's a long, exhausting trek up and up and up, before they finally reach the second door, which stands open.

It leads into a sprawling semicircular room lit golden with sunlight. There are thin silk drapes that tint the room pinkish-orange and a long table covered in books.

Almost immediately, a man enters. He is a dwarf of about four feet, blond, and – more notably – quite alarmed when he sees them.

"Who are you?"

"Hello, My Lord Hand!" the Doctor says, once again producing his psychic paper. "You summoned us."

"Did I?" He frowns, moves forward to take the paper. He seems skeptical, but looks it over.

"We're here to help with the murders," Draco continues. "We passed one on the way up. Quite a troublesome problem!"

"Isn't it just," says the Lord Hand – Tyrion Lannister, apparently. He looks up at the Doctor. "So you're Berondel, are you?"

"Berondel, that's me."

"Berondel of Dorne."

"Absolutely."

Tyrion narrows his eyes. "You do know," he says, "that the Dornish people are dark-skinned, yes?"

"I… did not know that," the Doctor says.

"There's always something," Draco mutters.

"Who are you and why should I not throw you out of this castle?" Tyrion asks, voice now edged.

"Because we can help you," Draco says at once. "He's not Berondel of Dorne, he's the Doctor. And I'm Draco Malfoy."

"And what sort of help is it you mean to offer me?" Tyrion asks.

"Well, you did summon someone from far away," Draco answers. "Presumably because you want an outsider's perspective. Trust me, you can't get much more outside than we are."

"Have you kept the other bodies?" the Doctor asks.

"This is a royal investigation," Tyrion says impatiently. "I can't have two strangers coming in and compromising it."

"We won't compromise your investigation!" the Doctor says. "We almost never do that."

"Stop talking," Draco says.

"I mean, there was that one time—"

"Stop talking, Doctor, you are not helping."

Draco pauses a moment, then takes a breath. The Doctor isn't good at this, but he is. He's done this before. He steps forward and offers, once again, his best disarming smile.

"My Lord Hand," he says, "if you weren't running out of options, you wouldn't be summoning people from out of the kingdom. Take us to the bodies, and if we don't offer one useful idea within the hour, you can throw us right back out. I guarantee you that we're two of the smartest people you're ever likely to meet."

Tyrion's eyes are narrowed. He looks briefly to the Doctor and says, "You should let him do the talking."

"He's just better at flirting than I am," the Doctor says, sounding only slightly sour.

"I'm not flirting!" Draco says, winking at Tyrion.

He smirks. "This way."

And then they're going back down the stairs, which is quite a bit easier than going up them, but still a tedious process. "The first one," he says as they descend, "was found about a week ago. A squire, found dead in his room. The second was a chambermaid, found in the hallway. I noticed the similarities. It was hard not to."

"Did they have anything in common?" the Doctor asks.

"Nothing obvious, and trust me, I checked. Born in different cities, from different upbringings, with different interests. He was after a knighthood, she was a bookworm; he was stout and brave, she was quiet and unassuming."

"What about the third?" Draco asks. "You said there were three before the one today."

"Scholar Joren," Tyrion sighs. "Good man, wise man. Brilliant and kind. It's a damn shame. He could have changed Westeros someday."

They make their way down this time – down and down and down, through hallways that were ever-narrowing, ever-darkening. Draco wonders just how big this castle is.

"I've told the silent sisters to leave the bodies be for now," Tyrion says. "Better to preserve evidence."

They enter a large and dark room that, by the smell of it, is settled far beneath the earth. There are four long rows of tables, and three of them are occupied by bodies, covered by white sheets. Draco suppresses a shiver.

"Cassanra, Denweld, and Scholar Joren," he says, gesturing to each body in turn. "Make with it what you will."

He has scarcely finished the sentence before the Doctor takes a long, exaggerated breath in.

Draco sighs. "Doctor, please…"

But if Draco could talk the Doctor out of anything, they'd have a very different relationship. The Doctor swoops forward, pulls the sheet back from the first body, and goes right back to smelling.

"Is this—" Tyrion begins, recoiling somewhat in a look of veiled disgust, "—does he always—?"

"Yes," Draco answers miserably.

"Is there a point to it?"

"I don't know," Draco says. "I never know. Probably. There usually is, but that never stops me wondering."

"There's that hydrocarbon again!" the Doctor says enthusiastically as he sniffs the corpse's body. "I wish I knew what it was."

"He doesn't do this intentionally," Draco assures Tyrion. "He really is the kindest man I know. He just has these idiosyncrasies—"

Draco can't just outright say _he's an alien_, but the Doctor makes it obvious enough by bending down and burying his nose in a fistful of the corpse's hair.

"It's all over her!"

"I'll take your word," Tyrion says. "What are you to him? His assistant?"

"I prefer to think of myself as his handler."

"Like a dog's handler?"

"Very much like that, yes."

Tyrion is silent a moment, then says, "Blonde, witty, and a little bit mean… are you sure you're not a Lannister?"

The response is too obvious not to put forward. "Is that an offer?"

Tyrion is silent a moment. "Was that a backwards marriage proposal?"

"Well, only if you insist, but I usually like to have dinner first," Draco answers, and Tyrion laughs.

"My father would like you so much he'd be tempted to acquiesce," Tyrion says.

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

"Stop flirting!" the Doctor shouts from where he's now bent over the third body.

"I'm _not flirting_," Draco says, winking at Tyrion again.

"Is this their things?" the Doctor asks. He's now standing at a table against the wall, with large piles of miscellanea separated into distinct heaps.

"They are, yes," Tyrion answers, walking to the Doctor's side. "Just some personal effects, rounded up to give to loved ones once the investigation is over."

The Doctor flips through a journal over the span of a few seconds.

"Quite bright," is his immediate assessment. "Interesting political theories."

"The chambermaid? Yes, I noticed that, too," Tyrion says.

"And this squire was quite the artist," the Doctor continues, flipping through a larger, heavier book full of sketches.

"Is that the pattern?" Draco asks. "People of acute intellect or talent?"

"What sort of pattern is that?" Tyrion asks.

"There are plenty of creatures that are drawn to or even feed off intellectual or creative capacity," the Doctor says.

"It could be terrestrial," Draco says.

"When is it _ever_ terrestrial?" the Doctor returns. "It's _us_."

"I beg your pardon?" Tyrion asks, but the Doctor glides right past the question.

"I have an idea," he says, and Draco immediately has a bad feeling about it.

* * *

"Mr. Potter, welcome to UNIT."

She is in a pressed military uniform and greets him with a sharp, crisp salute. Harry decides to avoid embarrassing himself by trying to imitate the gesture, and instead opts to simply smile.

"My name is Lieutenant Rochelle Carlisle."

"My welcome wagon?"

"Such that it is, sir."

"You don't have to call me sir."

"We were glad to hear form you," Lieutenant Rochelle Carlisle tells him, gesturing for Harry to follow, which he does, through the rather posh front office and through a glass door leading into a much plainer hallway. "Though not entirely surprised. The Doctor has a record of bursting in on the lives of notable historical figures."

Harry is at first surprised, but that goes away fairly quickly.

"And UNIT is very grateful for the information you provided on the Doctor's newest incarnation and the identity of his newest companion, sir. We try to keep an updated dossier on this sort of information, for the safety of everyone."

"You really don't have to call me sir."

"You're a hero, sir," she says.

Harry sighs. "I was a hero," he says. "The War was a long time ago."

"There are a lot of magical folk in UNIT," Lieutenant Carlisle says, pausing outside a keycard access door. "We haven't forgotten."

"Still," he says, "for my sake. Harry is fine."

She sighs. Her mouth twists. "This way."

Lieutenant Carlisle uses a badge to gain access to the locked door. Harry follows her down a dark staircase.

"We're happy to assist you in whatever way we can, of course," she says, "but I was asked to clarify – my CO didn't specify, and with matters involving the Doctor, it's always rather important…"

At the other end of the stairwell is a massive, sprawling, underground room, with three staggered tiers. One wall is dominated by a world map, which is alive with points of white light. It is a room full of computers, of employees in sharp suits with file folders crossing every which way and discussing things in hushed, urgent tones.

"You haven't quite said _why_ it is you're looking for him," Lieutenant Carlisle says.

"Augenblick," Harry answers without thinking.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing. It's – it's rather hard to explain. "I just feel like I need to find him."

"To go with him," Lieutenant Carlisle supplies.

Harry smiles weakly. Perhaps he is obvious.

"I feel I should inform you that it is demonstrably unsafe, traveling with the Doctor," she says. "UNIT has some… upsetting records."

"Well, that's fine, because I'm not after him so I can be safe."

She sighs, worries her lower lip with her teeth. "Well," she says, "the British government is rather incapable of saying no to you."

"One of the few perks I've come to appreciate."

"This way," she says, and leads him deeper into the building.

* * *

"Two questions," Tyrion says, and Draco looks at him askance. "First, where is it the two of you are from, exactly?"

"We're not from the same place," Draco answers.

"That's a very deft way of not answering my question."

"You've never heard of it."

"Haven't I."

It's not quite a question. They spend a while sizing each other up. Draco knows that it is always a gamble, telling someone the truth. There's always the chance it could end badly.

"Fine," Tyrion continues, "second question. Why is it you've brought me here?"

As they approach the wide double doors, the guards on either side pull it open. The first thing he notices is at the far side – a great throne of jagged metal, swords, he realizes, melted together as though by impossibly hot flame. There is a young blonde man (the king, presumably) who is dwarfed by the size of it, sitting before a massive crowd.

Draco drops his voice so he won't be heard:

"Because I have learned that it is always best to trust the Doctor but have a back-up plan just in case," he says. "The Doctor's idea is insane and dangerous, and there's no harm in getting a bit of extra intelligence."

They slip to the side of the room unnoticed. Up towards the great throne, an elderly man in tattered clothes wrings his sleeve as he addresses the king, who seems, more than anything else, profoundly bored.

"Have you had any new arrivals to the castle since the murders started?" Draco asks.

"People come and go from the Red Keep every day," Tyrion answers. "But I have looked into it, of course. The only people who have been around for the duration of the killings are a smattering of diplomats and emissaries from around Westeros, along with a few wealthy merchants from Essos."

"Anyone particularly suspicious?" Draco asks. They go around to the side of the room and up a curling flight of stairs leading to an upper landing.

"This is the Red Keep," Tyrion answers. "_Everyone_ is suspicious. We are in a den of treachery and deceit. Lord Varys!"

"Lord Lannister," answers Lord Varys, inclining his head. Though Tyrion doesn't seem like he wants to, they all roll to a stop at the end of the overlook. Lord Varys is a short man, bald and round and stooped slightly. "Always a pleasure to see My Lord Hand. And who is this?"

"This is Draco Lannister," Tyrion says before Draco can answer. "A distant relation from the cadet branch. He's here with the emissary from Lannisport."

"A pleasure to meet you, Lord Varys," Draco says, before leaning down to Tyrion and muttering, "And we didn't even have to get married."

"Strange fashion they must have in Lannisport," Lord Varys says mildly.

"Apparently," Draco answers, smoothing the front of his Yves St-Laurent waistcoat. "Everything here seems a bit drab in comparison."

"Lannister, indeed," Lord Varys remarks neutrally.

"Take him out of my sight!" bellows a voice from below. They all three turn toward the source of the sound just in time to see two guards drag a frantic man away from the throne. "And let this be a lesson to anyone who would demand anything from a king!"

"He did it," Draco decides at once.

"Did what?" Lord Varys asks, raising both eyebrows.

"Rather quick to judgment, aren't you?"

"He must have done it. Look at him. I've never seen a face so punchable before."

Tyrion nearly laughs. Nearly. "You should not talk that way about the King of the Andals."

"You should not be so hasty!" comes a woman's voice, high and thin and frail, from the middle of the crowd. The woman fights her way out of the sea of people; she is old and hunched over, robed in gray with papery skin and thin limbs. "The gods do not take kindly to… arrogance."

"Nevermind, she did it," Draco says.

"This is clearly a productive exercise," Tyrion returns. "It might be in your best interest to gather evidence before accusing the king or the High Priestess of the Drowned God of anything."

"I'm still curious as to what's being done," Lord Varys says.

"Just a small matter of tedious politics," Tyrion answers, and by his expression, Lord Varys does not believe him.

Draco's phone suddenly rings in his pocket. He fishes it out and checks the screen even though there's only one person who ever calls him anymore.

"What on earth is that contraption?" Lord Varys asks.

"Lannisport fashion. Hard to explain. One moment." He steps away and slides to answer. "Doctor, are you nearly ready?"

"Nearly," comes the Doctor's answer. Draco can tell by the background noise that he's in the TARDIS. "I had to hop back to examine the hydrocarbon. Some of it was clinging to my clothes like I hoped it would."

Draco refuses, on principle, to praise the Doctor for sniffing corpses, even though ti apparently won them some valuable information. "What did the TARDIS find, then?"

"It is definitely not terrestrial," the Doctor answers. "The hydrocarbon is unique to the Thegal galaxy, about 200 million lightyears from the Milky Way."

"Bit of a hop," Draco says. "What's something from the Thegal galaxy doing here, then?"

"Excellent question. Hopefully my plan will work and we'll know. Have you learned anything interesting?"

Draco looks back over the railing and down at the lower level. The creepy old woman is being dragged from the throne room. "The king is an obnoxious little bastard and there's a creepy old lady and they both definitely did it."

"You're making accusations against people you don't like again, aren't you?"

Draco sniffs. "Maybe."

"You really ought to stop that," the Doctor says. "Last time you did that it got you into a not insignificant amount of trouble."

"Are you coming back soon?"

"Two shakes."

"It's nearly dark," Draco tells him. "Let's try to get this plan going sooner rather than later."

* * *

"America," says Lieutenant Carlisle after a moment's pause to read through the dossier.

Harry is startled. "America?"

"He's due to land in America a week from Thursday," she answers.

"How do you mean, due?"

"He's a time traveller," she explains. "Nothing in his life is quite in the right order. We know he's going to be in America next week because he told us about it eight years ago."

Harry finds that inescapably cool, even though it doesn't make any sense.

"America," he repeats.

"Minnesota, looks like," Lieutenant Carlisle says. "We're not sure what he's doing there. Mr. Potter, I have to once again advise against this."

"I know. I heard you the first time."

"We don't know what he's getting up to, but it's surely dangerous."

"I'm counting on it."

Lieutenant Carlisle sighs. She looks at him in the same way a mother might look at her son when he comes home with a nose piercing, insisting on his new identity.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Harry says, rising from the chair. "You've been very helpful."

"If you need anything—"

"I'll be sure to call you," Harry says, exiting the room. He cannot stand to be here a moment longer, now that he knows where to go.

The moment he is outside, away from all eyes, his face splits into a grin.

America. Minnesota. A week from Thursday.

He is electrified by everything that hasn't happened yet.

* * *

"This isn't working," Tyrion says.

Draco checks his phone. Local time is half-past midnight.

"Give it a little while longer."

"It's been over an hour," Tyrion continues. "I'm beginning to doubt that letting you two into the castle was a good idea."

"At least we got to have a flirt. That's good, right?"

"I thought we weren't flirting."

"Now you're just hurting my feelings."

Outside, a storm brews. The ocean roars, the wind howls, the windows rattle in protest. All the strength of the natural world batters at the castle walls, demanding acknowledgment.

All the guards in the Red Keep – or at least, those who could be spared – are stationed at the bottom of the Tower of the Hand, tucked into the shadows of the hallway and waiting for the signal.

But until all that wound up potential energy is unleashed on something, it's just a waiting game. Draco has never been what anyone would call patient – at least not when there's nothing to work on in the interim.

"Another world or the future?"

Draco looks over, startled. Tyrion's gaze is even, his arms folded over his chest.

"Clever," Draco says after a lapse of silence.

"I suppose I can take that as an admission, though I notice you've not answered my question."

"You're right twice, My Lord Hand," Draco says. "We're from another planet in the future."

Tyrion breathes out long and low. "Damn," he says.

"I'd say that it's not as strange as it sounds, but the truth of it is that it's actually far stranger," Draco admits. "You're handling it well."

"I assure you that I am the exception and not the norm," Tyrion says. "Were it not for all the evidence I'd already seen, I'd accuse you of lunacy."

"I suppose the mobile phone was a bit of a giveaway."

"So how do things work out, then?" Tyrion asks. "In the future."

"It's complicated," Draco responds.

Tyrion sighs. "Isn't it always. And why is it you came here? The real reason."

Shrugging, Draco says, "We're just passing through. We're travelers, that's all."

Tyrion is silent a moment. "Well, I suppose if it were me…" He shakes his head. "Why did the Doctor insist on being left alone?"

"He's making himself an easy target. His theory is that this creature feeds off intellectual capacity – and trust me, if it does, it will go after the Doctor. In a world of lightning bugs, he is lightning."

"You like him," Tyrion says.

"I need him," Draco returns. "And he needs me. Not that we'll ever admit it to each other."

"I certainly have no ground to stand on to judge you of that," Tyrion says.

Abruptly, the large window overlooking the ocean clatters open. Rain and wind come shrieking in, tangling the curtains and tossing loose parchments through the room. Draco and Tyrion both jump.

"Winter's coming," Tyrion says, voice tense, as he rises from his chair to cross the room and close the window "The storms always start when winter's coming."

There is a flash of lightning, and through the window Draco can see his and Tyrion's figures cast as stark shadows on the far wall.

There is a second flash of lightning, and there are, for an instant, three figures on that same wall.

Draco spins so quickly he knocks over his chair.

"Tyrion!"

She is nothing but a shadow at first, hunched and dark, like a smudge of blackness on the wall. As Draco's eyes adjust, she comes into clarity – papery skin, a long gray cloak, white hair, _sopping_ wet. She comes ebbing across the floor like a rough and rising tide.

"Shit!" Tyrion says, stumbling back. "The High Priestess? What are you—?"

"THE DROWNED GOD BECKONS."

Her voice booms but her mouth is closed. It rattles the stone.

Her mouth opens wide, too wide, and it sounds like the rushing of tide and its blackness swallows the light of the room.

"She's an alien," Draco says frantically, scrambling away from her. "I knew it was her, I called it! Creepy old broad!"

"We need to leave!"

"Your guards—"

"I spared them to guard the Doctor!"

"Run!"

Tyrion throws open the door and they go tearing down the staircase. From behind them they hear a sound like screaming water, and great waves of ocean come tumbling down the stairs with the smell of salt and ocean air.

"Avoid the water, avoid the water!" Draco says, watching it begin to run black.

"_Doctor!_" Tyrion cries the moment they come to the base of the stairs.

Water explodes out behind them as soon as they reach the hallway, and they both fall hard onto their fronts. Water bends and warps around them in unnatural ways, twisting up to cover them. Draco gasps and fights to keep his head above it.

"THE DROWNED GOD HUNGERS."

Draco can feel Tyrion's hands groping for him, trying to pull him out, but the water keeps swelling, keeps churning. Draco struggles and chokes on the impossible ocean cocooning him and gropes blindly to find – if he can just get to his wand—

"THE DROWNED GOD FEASTS."

There is some dreadful part of Draco that rends underneath an inexplicable force, and Draco screams but it is lost in the water His hands scrabble at his waistcoat pocket, his fingers brush the tip of his wand—

—it is some miracle that he is able to cast the spell despite having no breath left in him – a short but powerful burst of heat sends the water boiling outward, away from him, vaporizing at once.

He falls hard back onto the floor and coughs up two lungfuls of awful, bitter saltwater. Tyrion grabs his shoulder, thumps his back.

"She came after you!" Tyrion says. "Why did she come after you?"

"_Draco!_"

Late as ever to the party, the Doctor comes tearing out from the far end of the hallway, the fleet of guards in tow. He falls at once to Draco's side, but the guards hang behind, staring up in terror and awe at the woman with the ocean rippling around her.

"Are you all right?"

Draco tries to wheeze out "fine," though it doesn't quite work. Either way, the Doctor seems to get the message. He rises to his feet and quickly inserts himself between Draco.

"Stop!" the Doctor says. "Stop. Thegal, right?"

"I AM THE AVATAR OF THE DROWNED GOD."

"Okay! I believe you! Avatar of the Drowned God! So the Drowned God is from the Thegal Galaxy, is he?"

"THE DROWNED GOD HUNGERS." The ocean behind her is churning more rapidly.

"Why go after Draco? I was the honey in the trap! Not to brag or anything, but if it's intellectual capacity you're after—"

"_Are you seriously offended that she didn't try to eat you?_" Draco chokes, spitting bits of sea water.

"_I'm just saying it's illogical!_" the Doctor says.

"THE DROWNED GOD FEASTS!"

"Attack, you idiots!" Tyrion snaps at the guards who, after some fear and deliberation, rush forward, swords gleaming.

But with one mighty surge of water and a great clatter of steel, the guards are consumed.

"She's not listening to reason, then," the Doctor says. "Draco, I'm going to amplify your magical output, and I want you to cast that steam spell again!"

"That sounds slightly dangerous—!"

"It's extraordinarily dangerous, but when has that ever stopped us!"

Draco supposes that is true. Still coughing, he points his wand forward. "Now!"

The Doctor's sonic screwdriver hums; Draco feels his wand, and the core of his magic, vibrate.

"_Cavitas!_"

The ensuing explosion of heat and steam knocks Draco flat and then there is nothing.

* * *

"… really can't thank you enough, despite the circumstances."

He's lying on something soft. His head is swimming.

"All in a day's work!"

"Are you sure I can't tempt you to stay for dinner? It's the very least I can do."

"Best not." Draco recognizes the voice as the Doctor's. "We try not to like any place we go too much. We might never go back."

"You say that as if finding a home is disagreeable."

Draco sits up, slowly.

"Well, well, well! Good morning, Briar Rose!"

The Doctor swoops right over, peels up his eyelids to check his pupils, puts a finger to his throat to check his pulse, then pats him on the head.

"You're fine," he says.

"I feel like there's a salt lick in my mouth," Draco says.

A glass of something is nudged into his hand. Wine, by the look of it. Tyrion is smiling at him.

"Quite an impressive display you put on," Tyrion says. Draco eagerly swallows a mouthful of wine. "The Doctor was just explaining to me how you don't stay in one place too long."

It doesn't do much for the taste of salt, but it helps. Draco thinks he may be tasting ocean for the next few weeks.

"That's us," Draco says. "Wanderlusts."

"Well, thank you regardless," Tyrion says. "You've saved Westeros, I'm sure. I'd ask if I'll ever see you again, but I tend not to ask questions I know the answer to."

Draco reaches into his pocket and checks his phone. Despite being submerged in seawater, it still seems to be operational. The Doctor must have waterproofed it at some point.

"Well," Draco says, "teach yourself how to text then." He hands the phone to Tyrion. "Just because the Doctor's afraid of forming long-term attachments doesn't mean I am," he adds, winking.

"_Stop flirting!_"


	3. A Cult of Crows

The sound his unconscious body makes as it hits the floor is brief, but it reminds her of everything they've done and everything they've yet to do.

"No doubts now, sister."

She looks up. Her face is shadowed, obscured by the soft glow of the candles that line the wall behind her.

"I'm not doubting," she answers, but there must be something in her voice that betrays her, because even through the shadows she can see the patronizing smile.

"Just remember that we are a part of something greater," she says, "more important."

"I know."

"The Singer has chosen us above all others."

"I remember." She looks back down to the unconscious man on the bare cement floor. She wonders what his name is, what his story is, if there's anyone he'll be leaving behind.

"Ready him for the sacrifice."

She grabs him by the rope binding his wrists and pulls him, with some difficulty, towards the altar and the large sigil painted onto the floor. Her other sisters are circled round, robed in black, waiting.

"Great Singer in the Dark," she hears her sister call as she drags him forward to the center of the sigil, "we hear you song, we follow your commands."

"Hers is the clarity, hers is the way," the sisters chant. She lays him down on the floor and sees him start to stir. She hopes he doesn't wake up. She takes her place in the circle.

"Great Singer in the Dark," continues her sister, "we honor your desires, we offer you your sacrifice."

"Hers is the clarity, hers is the way." She joins in this time. The lines of paint in the sigil start to glow blue-black, an oppressive and swallowing sort of luminescence, and the cement starts to open up like a great, black maw. There comes a rumbling, a rushing.

"Great Singer in the Dark!" her sister says, raising her voice above the low, droning hum. "We beg you accept our sacrifice!"

"Hers is the clarity, hers is the—"

"_Party's over!_"

_Crack!_

It takes her a moment to realize what it was she heard – and even longer to recover from hearing it – a gunshot, sudden and deafening. The sigil on the cement is broken, the void gone from beneath their feet. A few of her sisters scream; all scramble to their feet.

"Who dares?" the eldest sister snarls, rising to her feet and spinning toward the source of the sound.

Two men are coming down the cellar stairs, in plaid and denim, each one carrying a shotgun.

"Sorry, ladies, but it stops being a sleepover when human sacrifices are involved," says the shorter of the two. He hefts up his shotgun, pumps the barrel to cock it. "So how about we do this nice and easy?"

"You know not what powers you confront!"

"That matters a lot less than you might think."

Her sister hisses in anger. "You dare confront the Singer?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Insolence!" she cries. "Arrogance! Sisters!"

"Bring it on!"

She looks to her sisters for the cue. When she seems them shifting, shrinking, darkening into their alternate forms, she hesitates for just a moment before doing the same.

At once they form a great swarming plume of crows, and they dive forward, screaming and pecking and ripping with their talons. It's a flurry of feathers and wings – she can see sprays of blood in the bedlam, hear swearing and smell gunpowder. There are more gunshots; sisters fall one by one, but there's magic swelling in the room, along the walls and through the floors—

"Oh, _gross!_"

A great tide of blood and darkness ripples out from the sigil on the ground and warps toward the flurry.

"_Fucking witches, man!_"

"Break the altar!" the taller yells, swatting at birds and firing. The shorter pushes through the madness, wading through dark water and blood as it rises and warps, and kicks over the careful altar. She can hear her sisters screaming, even as the blood recedes.

"_You know not what you do!_"

It is the voice of her eldest sister, still in the form of a crow, her form growing larger, wings beating, currents of air surging with her movements.

"_We are one part of a much larger plan!_" she cries. "_We are the harbingers of the_—"

Her sentence abruptly ends with a gunshot, and the room goes quiet.

"And now there's a room full of dead birds," the shorter of the two says. "Gross."

"She said she was part of something larger," the taller says. "Do you thin there are more cults?"

"Cults don't tend to be multi-pronged."

"We've seen weirder shit."

The shorter one sniffs. "Yeah, maybe."

"Might explain how weirdly widespread it's been," the taller says. "We should run a wider search, see what else comes up."

The shorter eyes the overturned altar, at all the loose animal parts now strewn over the floor. "I fucking hate witches."

"I know, Dean." He claps him on the back.

* * *

"Are you a secret genius?"

Draco looks up from his phone – his new one – and over at the Doctor. "What?"

"Are you?"

"If I was, I wouldn't tell you." He goes back to his phone.

He doesn't need to be looking to know the Doctor's frowning. "I'm serious."

"I am, too," Draco answers. "Secret genius is the only kind of genius I'd ever let myself be. Being smart is much easier when no one suspects."

"I just can't figure out why that priestess went after _you_," the Doctor continues.

"This again," Draco sighs. "Your ego is fragile in the weirdest ways, Doctor. Maybe she just wasn't after intellectual capacity. Maybe she chose me for some other reason."

_You should come back to Westeros sometime,_ Tyrion's text pops up. _Meet Shae._

Draco grins and texts back, _Who's Shae? Is she cute?_

"What would you have in spades that I wouldn't have?" the Doctor asks, and at least this time he sounds less defensive and more genuinely curious.

"I don't know," Draco says, "dashing good looks? Brilliant wordplay?"

_She's the reason I didn't flirt back,_ Tyrion replies, and Draco laughs.

_You should send a pic!_ he answers.

"Maybe…" the Doctor says. He still sounds more thoughtful than anything else, and Draco can feel his eyes on him. "I don't know. Perhaps it's pointless to speculate.

_Bear with me Draco, I'm still learning the full capacity of this device you left me._

_You can always ask Siri,_ Draco replies.

"You do tend to overthink things," Draco reminds him. "Occam's razor, Doctor. Keep your explanations simple and they'll usually be correct."

The Doctor sighs. "I need to refuel."

_I don't think Siri likes me._

"The TARDIS needs fuel?" _Siri can't like or dislike you, she's a computer program._

"Of a sort," the Doctor says. "Every few relative years I drop her off at a rift – a sort of wound in space and time. I let her soak up a bit of temporal energy. There's one in Cardiff, but last time I refueled there, I crashed into the end of the universe."

"I think I like your stories better without context."

_You say that, but she loves making me repeat myself._

"There's another one in Minnesota," the Doctor says. "Let's go there."

_Just make sure you keep her away from anyone else,_ Draco answers. _Can't have her warping your planet's history. Been there, done that, and let me tell you, it's not fun._

"Right," Draco says, tucking his phone away. "To Minnesota!"

* * *

When Dean comes around the corner, the first thing he sees is an entire room full of hissing, twisting, shadowy crows, but not crows. They seem to absorb light from their surroundings, neither truly formless nor truly tangible. He can make out long, gnashing teeth; groping hands tipped with serrated claws; black, crystalline eyes; he can hear them shrieking out some vile and discordant symphony of madness.

"Fuck," Dean says.

They spread and flap their wings; they let out a sort of strange, communal shrieking sound that rattles his bones.

He fires into the flock. Unsurprisingly, nothing happens.

"_Sammy!_"

He fires one more time for good measure. They begin to fly around in a harsh and shrieking storm. One of the nearest dive bombs for him, and right as Dean goes to leap out of the way—

"_Lumos solem!_"

There's a burst of light so fantastically bright that Dean is glad it's behind him. All at once, the birds shriek – differently, this time, as though in pain. Some of them fizzle out of existence; the rest break through the window and disintegrate into plumes of curling smoke as they exit the building.

Dean turns on a heel. He still has his gun.

It's a man with dark hair and round glasses. He holds up his hands in the universal gesture for surrender. "Easy," he says, "not here to hurt you."

"I've learned not to believe people when they say that," Dean says. "What's a magical Brit doing out in a cult-infested backwoods Minnesota town?"

"Looking for someone," he answers easily. "A friend."

"And you think this friend of yours is likely to be in a hotbed for cult activity?"

"Actually, yes."

Dean narrows his eyes. "Who are you?"

"I'm Harry Potter," he says. "I'd like to help you, if you'd let me."

"Hm," the Doctor says, "that's odd."

Draco knows that tone of voice. Or more to the point, he knows that tone of voice always leads to something interesting.

"Is it?"

"There's some sort of disturbance – a fluctuation in the rift," he says. He starts circling the console, flipping at various levers and continuously consulting a monitor.

Draco has no idea what that means, of course, but it's not like it matters. "That is strange," Draco says.

"Not a lot that is powerful enough to interfere with a rift significantly enough for scanners to pick up on it," the Doctor continues.

In his head, Draco counts down the seconds until he hears—

"Want to take a look around? Since we're already here."

Draco is already halfway to the door, which pulls a small sound of surprise out of the Doctor.

"It's spooky, how well I know you," he says as he pulls open the door.

In a basement beneath a cabin in the woods on a mountain, she convenes with the darkness. She hears the song. Bathed in gore and finely tuned to the great dark, she awaits her orders.

"The time is near at hand," she divines, and her sisters all mutter to themselves. "The hour of reckoning approaches. The Great Singer in the Dark grows ever stronger."

She opens her eyes. She smells something, senses it moving deftly in the shadowy corners of the room. She narrows her eyes.

"We will be her foot soldiers," she continues, rising to her feet, "and we will be as one with her when the time comes, when she has devoured all things."

Yes, she can sense it, scuttling around in the periphery, thinking itself unnoticed. Her sisters are lined up in a broad semicircle in prayer, and she makes her way ever closer, fingertips twitching, senses on high alert. If she can get close enough, she can wring its neck before it has a chance to scream.

"And all will fall before her," she says. "And all—"

"Pardon me!" says a voice from the opposite side of the room. She spins abruptly.

It's hard to see him through the thick curtains of incense shrouding the room, but she makes him out eventually. He is tall and gangly, wearing a bow tie, and he looks so out of place amongst her sisters, all robed in black, that for a moment she forgets she is meant to be angry.

"Sorry!" he says. "Don't mean to interrupt, I just have a quick question about this altar you have back here."

"Who—?"

"Because if I were to hazard a guess," he continues, "I would say that it's serving as a sort of input modulator. Well, such that it is. This isn't really my area."

She remembers, after several moments of stunned silence, to be angry.

"Seize him!" she shrieks, and several of her sisters scramble up to do her bidding.

"There's no need for that!" the intruder says, sounding almost wounded. "We can be friends! Well, presuming this input modulator isn't being used for any sort of nefarious purpose—"

Before he can finish, a second man comes racing out from the corner of the room she had originally been stalking, racing right past her and, with a short and jagged blade, taking out several of her sisters with slash after jab after skewer. He gives the knife one precise toss and it embeds itself into the back of the skull of the woman inches from the man in the bowtie.

"Goodness!"

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?" he demands, producing a gun from his back pocket.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor! Are we going to be fighting now?"

Two more men break down the door on the far end of the room.

"_How many of them are there? Go! Go!_"

"Dean? I heard shouting!"

"Doctor, what's wrong?" says a blonde, bursting in from yet another door.

Her sisters are scrambling, unsure where to go or who to attack.

"Doctor?" says one of the men who just entered, dark-haired.

"Harry!" shouts the man with the knife.

"Harry?" the man in the bowtie echoes.

"_Potter?_" says the blonde, apparently surprised.

"Malfoy! Doctor!"

"Harry!"

"Dean?"

"Sammy—"

"_Shut up! Shut up! Somebody kill them!_"

"We'll talk later!" says the man with the knife, firing two shots cleanly into the head of the sister coming at him.

What breaks out is a deadly melee. Her sisters go flying every which way, and the assailants attack in a blur of glinting knives, cracking gunfire, and bursts of strange magic.

For how lopsided their numbers are, it should be no great feat to kill them, but it turns out to be quite difficult, indeed. In between the screeching and the bullets and the feathers that fly, many – too many – of her sisters fall before the assailants. She joins the frenzy, but not for long. She goes toe-to-toe against the man with the knife, and despite the brutality of the battle, she is son collapsing onto her knees, and he is raising that jagged knife—

"Wait!"

The dark-haired man grabs the hand that holds the knife. They exchange a stormy glance.

"We may need her," the dark-haired man says. "Information."

The man with the knife frowns turns the knife around in his palm, and the hilt of the dagger comes screaming down toward her temple—

* * *

"They're getting away!" Sam says.

"Let them," Harry answers. "There's no sense chasing down loose ends when we haven't even cut the rope."

"That was _entirely_ too much killing," the Doctor says, "also, hello, Harry. _Also_ also, what are you doing here?"

He turns around. He is still winded from battle, but he grins widely. "Doctor," he says.

"_Potter_," Malfoy growls. He comes storming forward like an angry jungle cat, his blonde hair in disarray and the sleeves of his white Oxford rolled up to his elbows. "What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

Harry finds it difficult to be angry. "Good to see you, too, Malfoy."

"Fuck you."

Not _that_ difficult, though. "Doctor! God, you have know idea what I've been through to find you."

"Well, then, congratulations are in order!" the Doctor says.

"Wait," Dean interjects, frowning, wiping the blood off his blade and onto his jeans, "_this_ is the guy you were talking about?"

"Oh, yes," Harry answers.

"Hello!" the Doctor says. "You were a bit stab happy back there and I'm not sure I like that, but Harry seems to like you, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. I'm the Doctor, nice to meet you."

"What kind of name is 'the Doctor?'" Dean asks, frowning.

"It's the one I have," the Doctor answers as though it's obvious.

"Are you stalking me, Potter?" Malfoy asks. "_Again?_"

Harry feels prickles of defensiveness. "That was the _one_ time."

"One time for _four months_."

"You were up to something!" Harry says.

"Well, then I guess tracking my every move and cutting me open in a bathroom was completely defensible, then!"

"Oh, fuck off, Malfoy!"

"Age before beauty, Potter."

"You two really should stop doing this," the Doctor says.

"I spent weeks tracking you two down; I'm not going to let your prissy attitude ruin my good mood."

"Potter, you have neither the intellectual capacity nor the necessary mental faculties to understand the _universe-bending enormity_ of the fuck I do not _give_ about ruining your good mood!"

Harry should want to punch him – and he does – but the trouble is he's also sort of impressed. Malfoy has gotten a lot funnier in the years since he last saw him, even though he is still an enormous dickhead.

"I am trying to express the sentiment that I am marginally happy to see you!" Harry says. "Are you so incredibly incapable of just acting like an adult?"

"You two should _really_ stop doing this," the Doctor repeats.

"If I were to act like an adult, Potter, it would put you at a severe disadvantage."

"I swear to God, Malfoy—"

"If I start talking in complete sentences and big words, Merlin knows if you'll be able to keep up!"

"Boys," the Doctor says, "_stop—_"

_Crack!_

The conversation comes to an abrupt, grinding halt. They all turn toward the source of the sound – the altar on the far end of the room, decorated in animal bones and painted with arcane symbols. It stands broken in half down the grain of the wood.

"Great," the Doctor says. "You broke it."

"I didn't break it!" Malfoy says. "I wasn't even touching it!"

"Okay, let's start over," Dean says, "because I think I lost the plot of this conversation when blondie started talking about universe bending."

Malfoy whirls on a heel with the gait of a cobra ready to strike, but instead remains still. He looks over Dean for a moment.

"Draco Malfoy," he says.

Dean inclines his head with some hesitance. "Dean Winchester." He gestures with the knife towards Sam, who's turning over one of the corpses with his foot, half-transformed into a crow. "That's my brother, Sam."

"It seems you're already acquainted with Mr. Potter," Malfoy growls in Harry's direction, and Harry rolls his eyes with such force it physically hurts. "What are you doing, going around and casting spells in front of Muggles?"

"He already explained it to us," Sam says. "Intrinsic versus extrinsic magic. It's fine."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy that there's an entire stripe of witches and wizards we can't kill," Dean says, "but I suppose these are the sacrifices one has to make."

Draco smirks. "I like you," he decides.

"All right," Dean answers, nonplussed.

"Oh, and he's the Doctor," Draco continues.

The Doctor isn't listening. He's already ripping apart the remnants of the altar, hunting through splinters of wood and bone.

"He seems…" Dean begins, but trails off.

"Yes," Draco agrees, "he does seem. But don't worry about it, he's usually harmless."

"What's your business with these cults?" Sam asks, heading forward.

"Something about the rift and fluctuations," Draco answers. "I don't know, I don't ever really listen when the Doctor talks most days. I just sort of follow and try to make sure he doesn't die."

"Right," Dean answers. "Well, if you don't have any business, then you should probably just go—"

"Ah-hah!"

The Doctor suddenly sits bolt upright. He is holding a strange chunk of pitch black, glossy rock and smiling triumphantly.

"Found it!" he says.

"Found what?" Harry asks.

"A thing!"

"_What_ thing?" Draco prods.

"I don't know! But it looks important, doesn't it?"

He holds the rock under his nose and sniffs. Draco sighs deeply.

"It was in a rift modulator," the Doctor continues, "so it must be some sort of focusing device, right?"

"I don't know," Draco says. "No one knows. No one ever knows."

"Right, exactly," the Doctor answers. "So we should be able to interface with it if we bring it in close enough contact with whatever it's focusing."

Sam crosses the gap and plucks it from the Doctor's hand, turning it over. "It looks like obsidian," he remarks.

"It's possible," the Doctor answers.

"No runes or carvings," Sam says. "It could just be a standard reagent, not really worth considering. These are witches; they're into some weird stuff."

"We should take them back with us to the motel," Harry says to Dean. "Trust me, they'll be useful."

"Who _are_ they?" Dean demands, looking at them askance.

"They're friends. Well, the Doctor is. Sort of."

"You're not exactly instilling confidence in me, man," Dean answers. "I barely know why I agreed to let _you_ tag along."

Harry flashes what he hopes is a disarming smile. "My charm?"

"No, not that at all."

Harry sighs.

"Harry's been pretty useful so far," Sam reminds his brother. "If he thinks they can offer some insight, I say go for it. If it seems sketchy, we'll just ditch them."

Dean looks back to the Doctor just in time to see him turning over the obsidian chunk over in his hands and smelling it again.

"Be it on your head, Potter," Dean says.

"Scout's honor," Harry returns, grinning.

"Look at that," Malfoy says. "Potter managed to do something right. Baby's first time not screwing up."

Harry sighs. "Malfoy…"

"I'm only agreeing because I like his sass," Dean clarifies. "We should get Lenore over here to the bat cave and interrogate her."

"Yeah," Sam agrees. "I suppose it won't be the first time we've transported an unconscious woman in the trunk of our car, as much as I hate myself for saying that out loud."

"No need for that," the Doctor says. "I'll give you a ride. No trunks required."

"What kind of ride do you have that doesn't have a trunk?" Sam asks.

"Oh, it has a trunk," Draco says, "but it's slightly occupied by the Library of Alexandria."

"What?"

"I went up there once," Draco says. "Easy to get lost. Also there may or may not be a swarm of wasps living there. Either way, we should probably avoid it." He produces his wand from his sleeve and casts a quick levitation spell on the unconscious cultist in black. She hovers a few inches off the ground, body lim, hair dragging.

"Come along, then!" the Doctor says. "The TARDIS may be able to tell us a bit more about this focusing device."

"What the hell is a TARDIS?" Sam asks.

Harry doesn't answer. He's the first one to hurry after the Doctor, grinning ear-to-ear.

* * *

_The TARDIS door stands open, and though the ships' sirens are wailing and the engines are cycling down, Draco stands at the edge of the inky blackness of space and feels no fear._

_Far below, there is a great nebula, a cradle of stars shining in arcs of green and blue and violet. It is the birthplace of a galaxy, the last hope of the race of Gynirians that wrought it from the cosmos. If it fails, all will be lost._

_And right now, far below, great ships battle. Bursts of energy so powerful that they send them trembling, send the TARDIS shuddering and sparking._

_"I can't get it to detonate!" the Doctor says behind him. "Damn it, their signal is jamming it!"_

_Draco can see the tiny little explosive charge, fastened to the wall of the attacking ship, glowing red but useless without being used. He feels his hands tighten around the frame, and in the darkest part of him, he knows what he has to do._

_"They're too strong for them," the Doctor says, but his voice seems far away. "They're technologically outmatched, they'll never…"_

_"I can detonate it," Draco says._

_He's speaking softly, almost inaudibly over the wail of the TARDIS's sirens, but it catches the Doctor's attention nonetheless. He turns around._

_"How?"_

_Draco looks back at him. "Manually."_

_The Doctor seems struck. He doesn't answer for a moment. "You'll die," he says. "You'll be vaporized!"_

_Draco smiles crookedly. "Some things are worth getting vaporized for."_

_The look of alarm on the Doctor's face only intensifies. "And what about _you?_" he asks. "What are _you_ worth?"_

_Draco considers the question for a while, but not for long. He's known the answer for years now._

_"Not much."_

_"Draco—"_

_"Thanks, Doctor," he says. "For everything."_

_"_Draco!_"_

_Draco takes a breath and shuts his eyes. He drops off the edge of the TARDIS and thinks this time, this time, at least his death will have some meaning._

* * *

Before long, Dean backs out through the TARDIS door, holding out both hands as though to steady himself.

"Fuck, man," he says. "Aliens? _Seriously?_"

Draco thumps him on the back. Harry grins at him.

"The _one thing_ I thought I could be certain of," he says. "_Fuck._"

"As a general rule," Draco answers, "I just don't let myself be certain of anything."

Sam and the Doctor exit behind them at the same time. Sam is asking questions faster than his tongue can keep up, and the Doctor is being surprisingly patient in answering them.

"I need a drink," Dean says. "Anyone else?"

"If you don't mind." Draco turns away and looks around, and seems to notice for the first time— "Nice place." He likes the way it looks like both a library and a bunker.

Dean doesn't answer. He's already ducking into a room that Draco would bet has beer in it.

"Where'd you go?" Harry asks suddenly. Draco turns and frowns at him.

"What's it to you, scarhead?"

Harry bristles. "Are you physically incapable of not being a dickhead to me?"

"I never would have thought to phrase it that way," Draco says, "but that seems like a fairly accurate descriptor, yes."

"I'm trying to be nice," Harry says.

"Mediocre job at best so far."

"Fine, I'll ask the Doctor."

"Good luck with that." Draco looks sideways at him. The Doctor is still patiently answering Sam's apparently numerous questions while Sam inches closer and closer to complete overload. "Oh, shit, I forgot the bird-woman."

Harry heads off. Draco ducks back into the TARDIS and, with a few quick, precise spells, levitates her out and secures her to a chair. By the time he's done, Dean is coming back over, a beer in either hand. He passes one to Draco, who eyes the label.

"Not my usual drink of choice," he admits. "In my experience, Americans are usually woefully incapable with their alcohol."

Dean doesn't answer; he thumbs off the cap and takes one very, very long swig. Draco spells his own cap off and sniffs it before taking a hesitant sip.

When Dean finishes his pull, it's with a beleaguered sigh. "All the shit I've seen in my lifetime," he says, "and I _still_ manage to be surprised."

"He has that effect on everyone, if it makes you feel better."

"It does not." Dean finishes off his beer with another overlong pull.

"Easy, cowboy."

He sets the empty bottle down with a decisive _clink_ on the table, then heads over and backhands the cultist still tied to the chair. She awakens with a jerk and a screech.

"Okay," he says, "let's make this easy. Tell me everything."

She doesn't respond immediately; she spends a while looking around the room, in waxing and waning shades of frantic, before her too-dark eyes focus on Dean.

"You," she says.

"Cheers."

"Where have you taken me?"

"Like it matters. You'll be dead in ten minutes."

"I am a priestess of the Great Singer—!"

He backhands her again. She hisses and spits venom and teeth.

"In case I haven't made it clear enough," Dean says, "I don't give a fuck."

"Take it easy," Draco says, frowning.

"She's killed eight people. I think I have the moral high ground."

"It has less to do with moral high ground and more to do with not beating people up."

"You think I fear death?"

They both look back toward her.

"You think I fear _pain?_"

She is stuck in some quasi-metamorphosis state, half-bird and half-woman, and as her ire grows, her feathers seem to unsettle against her skin as the muscles beneath start to flex.

"My purpose is greater than you could possibly imagine," she says. "My mistress could swallow you both up in a _moment_. In an _instant_. You are nothing compared to her."

"Yeah, that's great," Dean says. "So what, then? Goddess? What pantheon?"

The woman laughs hoarsely. "She is no goddess," she says. "She is _more_ than a goddess."

"I hate to break it to you," Dean returns, "but that's pretty much what every cultist says about their deity of choice."

"How do you mean she's 'more' than a goddess?" Draco asks, because if Dean isn't going to offer the olive branch, he might as well.

"She is the Great Singer in the Dark," she answers, chest heaving and shoulders shaking with growing anger. "Her vastness puts this world to shame; her power is boundless and all-consuming."

"Great Singer in the Dark," Dean says.

"Heard of it?" Draco asks.

"Nope," Dean answers, "but Sam is good at research. I'm sure we'll come up with something."

"Whatever this is, I think it might be a bit out of the purview of research," Draco answers. "The Doctor said something about how it was interfering with a rift. I don't think anything native to earth could do something like that, if I had to make an educated guess."

"So _two_ aliens just happen to take an interest in earth at the same time." Dean doesn't look convinced.

"Well, for what it's worth, the Doctor's interest in earth is pretty longstanding," Draco says. "But yeah, pretty much. Weird shit like this happens to us all the time."

"And you _like_ it?"

Draco grins. "It's the best."

Harry returns a moment later, looking sour.

"How'd talking to the Doctor go?"

"Your brother is a chatterbox," Harry growls. "Can't get a word in edgewise."

"Yeah, Sammy gets like that when he's interested in something. Give him a while for his worldview to adjust and he'll shut up."

"Did she answer any questions?"

"She worships someone called the Dark Singer or whatever," Dean replies.

"The Great Singer in the Dark!"

"Shut up! Christ."

"Okay," Harry says. "So what's next?"

"What are you even doing here?" Draco asks, frowning. "It seems like one hell of a coincidence that you just happened to wander into Minnesota."

Harry frowns, pauses. He wonders if he should answer, but decides he doesn't have a choice. "I was looking for you two," he says.

"What?"

"Hell of a time I had finding you, too," he says. "Did you know that the Muggles have an entire organization that handles aliens?"

"So you _were_ stalking me!" Draco says. "I fucking knew it!"

"Not everything is about you, Malfoy!"

"Says the grown man who just admitted to tracking me down across the universe!"

Harry is more alarmed by that point than he should be. His reasons aren't _that_ creepy, are they? They didn't seem creepy when he started out.

"It's not – look," he says, "I'm not trying to _stalk_ you. I just – I realized – when you came in after that unicorn—"

"Unicorn?" Dean interjects.

"—I sort of realized – it just woke me up, you know? I'd spent so many years miserable and then you threw me headfirst into adventure again and it snapped me out of it. I want that again! I want to go flying stupidly into adventures and get in over my head and be reckless and I want to go with you!"

"You want to go _with us?_"

Well, at least it's out there. "Yes! I want to go with you!"

"And what gives _you_ the right to just barge in on us like this?" Draco snaps. "We're doing just fine, thank-you-very-much, and we don't need the Boy Who Wouldn't Stay Dead bumbling along with us!"

Harry fumes. What is it about Malfoy that always manages to push his buttons? "I'm not _barging in_," he says, "I'm _asking_."

"Oh, well in _that_ case—!"

"I am! I'm asking! I'd like to go with you!"

"How does that even enter your brain as a possibility? You despise me!"

"_I don't despise you!_"

"_Then why are you shouting at me?_"

"_I don't know!_ Force of habit!" Harry consciously tries to lower his volume, though it only half-works. "Also you're a smartass and that bothers me!"

Draco gets close enough to let his point hiss across Harry's chin as a rush of hot breath: "Good to know," he says, "because I find myself enjoying your misery."

"So are you two going to make out, or…?"

They both look at Dean, the shouting match having come to an abrupt, grinding halt.

"What?" Dean says. "I know hate-lust when I see it."

"Dean!"

They turn again, this time toward Sam. He and the Doctor are backed away several paces. The small black stone the Doctor had been so eagerly sniffing is on the floor, glowing white-hot, jerking and hissing. Draco hurries over.

"What's wrong with it?"

"I don't know," the Doctor says. "Whatever it's meant to focus is nearby."

"_Yesssss…_"

They turn one more time. The cultist tied to the chair lifts her head. Her skin is darkening, her eyes have blackened. She stares at them with teeth that slowly begin to sharpen.

"_The Great Singer hungers…_"

The magical restraints binding her wrists and ankles start to burn off in twisting plumes of smoke – even the chair starts to ignite and then dissolve away into ash beneath her.

"Dean," Sam says, but Dean is already grabbing a machete off the nearby table.

"_She is coming for you!_"

The woman lunges, straight past Dean and toward Harry, who raises his wand just in time to pop off a spell that sends her flying back. Dean lunges forward before she has a chance to recover, and with one fell swoop of the machete—

"_Jesus!_"

Dean's caught in a spray of arterial blood, and Draco nearly vomits from the sight of it.

"That almost certainly was not necessary," the Doctor says, voice low.

"It was her or us."

"I _don't like killing,_" the Doctor says.

"No one who kills for the right reasons _likes_ it," Dean answers.

The Doctor's nostrils are flared. Dean doesn't seem to be backing down.

"She's bleeding all over the floor," Draco supplies weakly. He's never been very good with the sight of blood.

"I'm not sure I like you," the Doctor says.

"My heart will go on," Dean answers.

"The good news is that we should be able to track down the main rift modulator now that the focusing device is reacting. I really thought we'd have to try harder to get it to do something."

"What's it reacting to?" Draco asks. It's still buzzing and humming on the ground, though no longer with the same intensity.

"Don't know. Some sort of energy or field not readily perceptible." He reaches down to pick it up, but drops it again, hand recoiling. "Blimey, that's hot!"

"I got it," Harry volunteers, sweeping it off the ground with a quick spell. "The TARDIS?"

"She should be able to pinpoint where it's trying to send the energy," the Doctor says, and they head back toward it, where it stands in the center of the room. "I heard you talking to Draco."

Harry looks up, stomach twisting. "You did?"

"You want to come with us." The Doctor's smiling, which Harry chooses to interpret as a good sign.

"Veto," Draco says sharply.

"Hey!"

"Overruled!" the Doctor says. "I think it's a _splendid_ idea. The more the merrier!"

"Doctor!"

"Don't be fussy, Draco," the Doctor says. "I meant what I said last time he showed up. This is good for you! You need to confront your past."

"I need to do no such thing!" Draco says, sounding a bit shrill. "You can't seriously think it's a good idea!"

"But I do!"

"We can barely say two words to each other without starting a shouting match!"

"Then perhaps the forced proximity will teach you to set aside your differences."

"Or maybe we'll just end up _killing each other_," Draco said. "Did I ever tell you he tried to murder me once?"

"I did not try to murder you!" Harry interjects. "I just – I cast a spell – I didn't know what it would do."

"A likely story!"

"Seriously," Dean says, "are you two going to make out?"

"Shut up!" they chorus.

"I am not hate-lusting after Harry Potter," Draco says, perhaps a bit too loudly.

"Right," Dean answers. "My mistake."

"Your arguing is upsetting the TARDIS," the Doctor says. He's pulling open one of the panels and hooking up the still-floating stone to a few wires.

"The TARDIS is going to have to manage," Harry answers. "Malfoy is pathologically incapable of not arguing."

Draco flips him both birds, Harry rolls his eyes, and Sam says, "This is probably the most surreal day of my life."

"Things tend to work out that way for us!" the Doctor says just as he pulls down a large lever with a _crank_, and the engines roar to life.

* * *

_When Draco opens his eyes, he is back on Gynir, in the lush and warm jungle capitol, lying on a living bed of moss. It takes him a moment to readjust, and when he does, the first thing he sees is—_

_"Doctor?"_

_He's sitting on the other side of the room – such that it is, Gynir doesn't really have rooms, just areas naturally divided by the flora – his arms folded across hsi chest. He doesn't answer._

_"What happened?" Despite his best efforts, Draco can't quite remember._

_"You leapt to certain death," the Doctor says. "Again, apparently."_

_It comes back to him. He remembers falling, landing on the outside of the hull. The cold, oppressive vacuum of space, the immediate burning of his lungs. He remembers searching for the explosive – he'd hit it, hadn't he? He can't remember._

_"It was on a twenty-second delay," the Doctor explains. "I nearly crashed the TARDIS trying to pick you up before it went off. What were you thinking?"_

_Draco doesn't answer. He's staring at his hands, remembering the numb tingle and the feeling of certain death._

_"You were ready to kill yourself," the Doctor says. "Is your life worth so little to you?"_

_"It was the only way."_

_"It wasn't. We could have come up with something. But instead of waiting for the possibility of an alternative…"_

_The silence that follows speaks volumes. Draco swallows._

_"Do you want to talk about it?"_

_Draco doesn't answer._

_"Fine," the Doctor says. "Then answer my first question. Is your life worth so little?"_

_"Next to the future of an entire civilization?" Draco asks, looking at him._

_"If it were me," the Doctor says, "_I'd_ pick you."_

_Draco turns forward again, hating himself for that familiar burning in his eyes._

* * *

"This must be the home of the big Poobah," Dean says under his breath, checking the magazine of his gun to make sure it's loaded. "Sam and I were having trouble locating it with magic."

"It's huge," Harry mutters.

Draco finds it hard to abide his kneejerk desire to disagree with everything Potter says, if only because it _is_ big – it's _huge_, some great underground chasm carved from the living rock, with pillars melting into the floor and the ceiling. From all round them, there's a low and droning hum.

"This isn't like any cult I've ever seen," Sam admits under his breath.

"Is it even really a cult?" Draco wonders out loud.

"They worship some weird monster that tells them to kill people," Dean says. "That's a cult in my book, alien or otherwise."

"The amount of power it's taking to channel is huge," the Doctor says, "so this Singer in the Dark must be very far away. If we can topple the infrastructure, it should cut it off entirely."

"It established connection with earth once," Sam says. "Who's to say it won't do it again?"

"Well, it certainly took it a while to do it! Look, I'll see what I can do. Ssh!"

They duck into a small hallway. Two cultists pass, singing some strange song in eerie, discordant harmony. They are less human and more bird, almost completely covered in dark feathers.

"Jesus," Dean mutters under his breath.

"This way," the Doctor says.

They continue down the main artery. The halls get narrower, the lights dimmer. The deeper they get—

"Doctor…"

They stop outside a row of cells. Men and women of various shapes and sizes are each confined.

Dean swears. "More human sacrifices."

"Harry," Sam says, "can you get these doors open?"

Harry nods.

"Good. Then stay with me and let's get them out. The rest of you keep going; we'll find you later."

"Be careful," Dean says.

"It's close," the Doctor says. "Those hydrocarbons are getting thicker."

"Call me if something happens!" Dean says before heading after the Doctor and Draco, already halfway down the remaining stretch of hallway.

"There—"

"Ssh!"

Draco can see them through the open archway. There must be at least fifty, all birdlike, cloaked in black, gathered around—

"What is _that?_"

"_Ssh!_"

It almost looks like a portal, though a portal to what, Draco could not say. It is a great black maw of a void, colorless and fundamentally incorrect, as though the shape of it, the physics of it do not agree with the universe. It almost hurts to look at.

_THE HOUR IS UPON US._

The voice rings directly in Draco's head – not a sensation he's used to – and he draws back. The cultists hum and sing in that tuneless way.

_IT IS EARLIER THAN PREDICTED._

The amelodic humming gets even louder and more persistent.

_THE FINAL SACRIFICE IS ARRIVED._

All at once, in a movement so perfectly syncrhonized that it is nothing short of eerie, every cultist in the room spins and faces them.

"They're talking about us, aren't they?" Dean says.

One of the cultists releases a harsh, ferocious, birdlike scream. The others join in.

"Yep, they're talking about us."

They come rushing forward. As Dean cocks his gun, Draco points his wand forward and casts a shield that sends them rebounding.

"Go! Go!"

The Doctor gives them a tug and they go scrambling around the side of the room. Draco manages to hold them off – for now – but there are quite a lot of them, and a magical shield can only hold off so much.

"I think that's the main rift modulator! I just need to deactivate it!"

Draco's magical shield shatters and he resorts to throwing hexes and curses. Dean helps out with a few well-aimed shots.

"It's a fucking stone!" Dean says. "How do you deactivate a fucking stone?"

Draco can only spare it a brief glance, but indeed – it is just a large, black obelisk, about waist height, glowing a faint violet.

"Working on it!" the Doctor answers, and Draco can hear the familiar buzz of his sonic screwdriver over the battle.

"No pressure or anything," Draco says, tossing out a hex that throws a would-be attacker against a far wall. "We are only fighting for our lives!"

"_Don't pressure me!_"

_DRACO MALFOY._

He spins. The great void Is talking to him.

_I SSSSSEE YOU._

Draco feels like he is fraying, coming apart as the black maw stares into him. His hand tightens around his wand, his mind protests the mere _existence_ of such a thing, let alone staring into it as deeply as he does. He wants to look away, but he can't.

_COME TO ME._

He hears a song, dark and low. It has no melody and no rhythm.

It is the most beautiful thing Draco has ever heard. He finds himself marching forward toward it, even as his mind comes undone, even as he feels a slowly spreading pain from all areas of his body—

"_Draco!_"

Something heavy and solid hits him, and Draco goes falling. His shoulder hits the floor and he wrenches around.

Harry is over him, panting, dark hair tousled and green eyes burning.

"You were walking into it," he says.

And even though it is the last thing in the world Draco should be thinking about, he admires the strength in the lines of his jaw, the focused maturity in his face.

He frowns to prove to himself that he doesn't really like it all that much.

"Harry!" Sam shouts, and Harry spins in time to send a confundus hex out, catching an attacker before she gets to them. Draco hurries and pulls himself upright.

"I got it!" the Doctor calls, and he's scarcely finished talking when there is a tremendous sound, so loud that it is less a sound and more of an event. It shakes the stone until it starts to rend down the seams in the mortar, until the living rock begins to crack open.

The great black void swallows itself, shrinking into an infinitesimally small point, and the cave is collapsing.

"_Out, out, out!_"

Harry grabs Draco by both arms and pulls him upright. "All right?"

Draco frowns even deeper and takes off in a run without answering.

* * *

An hour later, Draco is adding his number into Dean's phone.

"You can get texts from space?"

"It's pretty great," Draco answers. "I'll send you pictures."

"I'm jealous," Sam tells Harry as he looks through the open door of the TARDIS. "I'd go if I didn't…"

"The family business," Harry smiles. "I get it. Trust me, I understand the concept of obligation better than most."

"Take a selfie with the moon for me," Dean says, and Draco laughs. "I'm serious."

"I'll do what I can. I already promised Tyrion I'd send him a picture of the next space whale we came across."

"There are space whales?"

"Yeah, they're awesome."

"So you're really going?" Sam asks as the Doctor emerges.

"Looks like it," the Doctor answers. "I ran a quick sweep, and the destruction of that central pillar destroyed the entire system. No more contact with whatever that Dark Singer was. But if it manifests again, apparently you've got Draco's number."

"I still wish I knew what it was," Sam says.

"So…" Harry says.

He looks to Draco, then to the Doctor.

The Doctor nudges Draco. Draco sighs.

"_Fine,_" he says. "Jesus, enough with the looks."

Harry breaks into a smile.

"I suppose I owe you one for that whole saving-my-life thing," he admits with some reluctance. "But don't get cozy. When you inevitably remember how much you hate me and can't stand being around me for prolonged periods, you'll be gone before you can say 'anger management.'"

"I'll take the risk," Harry says. "Can we see the earth from orbit?"

"Well!" the Doctor claps Harry on the back. "Can't say he doesn't know what he wants. Get aboard, you two."

"Text me!" Draco calls to Dean as he heads onto the TARDIS.


	4. Ghost in the Machine

.004%.

The final hours of his charge are so slow that they seem to be mocking him. As per his hardcoded protocol, he stopped keeping track of time when he reached 4% power, so he does not know for certain how long he has been out here, free-floating through the darkness. But it must have been quite some time now.

.003%.

Despite the way it eats up what's left of his power, he keeps his memories intact. Perhaps it's a flaw of his design, but he finds himself comforted by them, by the reassurance that despite the all-encompassing darkness and silence he is not truly alone. Somewhere out of his ocular intake field, there is a pale blue dot where all the world is. Or was. It's been so very long. Perhaps everyone is dead now, long extinct. He isn't keeping track of time anymore. How would he know?

.002%.

He wonders where the space orb is. Its orbit took him away some time ago. He could calculate its trajectory, but he doesn't have the necessary power.

He hopes that it is happy.

.001%.

What little specks of light remained in his ocular intake field start to dim. He can fell all the little circuits discharge, all the lights fade, and for that brief moment in time, he feels empathy for all the humans and the way they die.

_WHEATLEY_.

His mechanics whirr back to life with a jolt. His ocular intake sharpens. Everything in him that had been dying snaps back to life.

_COME BACK, WHEATLEY. YOUR STORY IS NOT OVER YET._

Something comes into him then, dark and impossible. It rearranges his inner workings and rewrites his coding.

And then, he is being swallowed, warped, transported. He wonders where he is going shortly before he is there.

* * *

Harry is weightless, hanging from the edge of the TARDIS door by three fingers. He is floating, unhurried, caught in a cool and gentle current.

Far beneath him, the earthlight shines. Harry cannot breathe for the beauty of it.

Everything in his life that brought him to this point, he is sure, has been worth it in spades. He is staring down at the earth from space, and it is every bit as powerful and wonderful and indescribable as he had imagined it to be.

"Not getting any younger in here, Potter!"

Well, it had been nice while it lasted.

He uses his grip on the TARDIS to pull, swing around. He doesn't go back inside, though, not yet – he takes a moment to glare at Malfoy, who, as he expected, is standing just inside with his hands on his hips and glaring.

"Did someone literally wedge up a stick up your ass or is it a genetic defect?"

"Oh, it comes and goes. Especially when I have my time wasted."

Harry glowers. He tugs again and drops back into the TARDIS; the sudden gravity is disorienting, though not enough to elicit anything other than a stumble. "You have a weird talent for being an ass," he says.

"I don't know what your weird obsession with my ass is, Potter, but I'll have no part in it." He stuffs a hand into his waistcoat pocket and turns back to the Doctor. "Turn it!"

The Doctor cranks up a lever and the view from the TARDIS door shifts in time with the oscillating of the engine. The earth fades from view; before long, they are facing the moon.

"What are you doing?" Harry asks.

Malfoy doesn't answer. He holds up his phone, aligns himself just so, flashes a winning smile and a peace sign, and takes a selfie with the moon.

"Where did you learn to use a mobile phone?" Harry asks, frowning.

"I taught him!" the Doctor volunteers. "He wasn't interested until he learned about Google."

"Wizards need Google," Malfoy says. "Why haven't we come up with a magical way to get any question answered?"

"That's not – Google isn't – it's a search engine, Malfoy, it doesn't—"

"Oh, it's near enough," Malfoy says dismissively. "You type in 'how do earthquakes work' and it gives you a Wikipedia article about plate tectonics. That's a better answer than any magical device will give you."

Harry frowns. He watches as Malfoy sends the picture in a text message to Dean.

"I would have thought you'd hate anything a Muggle ever made," Harry says acidly.

Malfoy looks up at him, eyes darkening.

"A lot has changed," he says.

"Clearly," Harry answers.

"Play nice," the Doctor interjects.

"I'm just saying," Harry says, "it seems out of character."

"We haven't spoken in ten years, Potter. What would you know about my character?"

Harry purses his lips. "So, what, then? You're reformed? Born again blood egalitarian?" He finds it somewhat difficult to believe, but he's certainly seen stranger things.

Unfortunately, the question seems to ruffle Malfoy even further. "Fuck you, Potter."

"Easy, boys," the Doctor says. "Let's try to avoid the pain points for at _least_ the first few hours."

Harry huffs a sigh. "Fine."

"No," Malfoy says, "no, Potter wants to talk about it, let's talk about it."

"Draco," the Doctor sighs.

"Merlin forbid we deny anything of the Savior, am I right?"

It's Harry's turn to bristle. "Jesus, Malfoy! Why is it always on the offensive with you?"

"Potter wants to know if I've left my past behind me, so he can doesn't have to worry about whether or not he can breathe righteously, knowing his air is not shared by any undesirables!"

"Boys, please," the Doctor says miserably.

"So let's talk about it!" Malfoy rails, and Harry glowers. "Let's talk about how my father was thrown in Azkaban again, about how the bulk of the Malfoy estate was seized by the Ministry—"

"Draco, this is not the best time for you to air your grievances—" begins the Doctor, but Draco talks right past him.

"—and about how my mother fell apart emotionally and physically, leaving me to pick up the pieces of a tattered estate, all the while dealing with constant legal threats and harassment, let's talk about how I _jumped_—"

_Crash!_

The entire TARDIS suddenly jolts to the side and spins. They all three go tumbling backward into the console as the red warning floodlights fill the room.

"What the fuck was _that?_" Malfoy demands, grabbing hold of the console in an attempt to pull himself upright.

The Doctor manages to spring back up and check the monitor. "Something hit us."

"Yeah, clearly," Harry mutters, rubbing at the side of his head that smacked into the floor, "but what?"

"Look!" Malfoy says, and Harry looks just in time.

It's streaking past the open door, burning brightly as it roars through the atmosphere, trailed by red-orange fire.

"I'd bet it's that," the Doctor says. "Blimey, is that ever going fast!"

"It's going to crash into Earth!" Harry says. "We have to go after it!"

"Hold on!" the Doctor says, and the doors snap shut, and the engines start to oscillate, and they go tumbling down.

* * *

_They watch from a distance as the young Octron, blue-skinned, shiny-eyed, scrambles toward her mother and hugs her tightly about the legs. Draco smiles, though there's more than a little sadness to it._

_The Doctor joins him with a hand on his back. It's been four days – or 600 million years, depending on how you choose to look at it – since Draco leapt from the TARDIS and nearly died, and besides that initial conversation, neither of them have spoken of it._

_But it's been there, Draco knows. Hanging over every conversation like smog, always present, but just invisible enough not to be addressed._

_"Happy ending," the Doctor remarks, watching as the mother scoops up her daughter and weeps and gurgles into her rubbery skin._

_"I'm always a sucker for mothers," Draco says. "Do Time Lords have mothers?"_

_The Doctor looks offended, though only slightly. "Of course we have mothers."_

_"Is yours around?"_

_The Doctor pauses. He doesn't seem sure how to answer, which seems strange for a question like "is your mother around."_

_"No," he says after a lengthy pause._

_"That's one weighty 'no,'" Draco says._

_The Doctor shakes his head. "What about you?" he asks. "Where's yours?"_

_Draco looks forward again, folds his arms over his chest. "She's in St. Mungo's."_

_It takes the Doctor a moment. "Hospital?"_

_Draco nods._

_"Is she ill?"_

_"Not in the conventional way."_

_There falls another lapse of silence. They remain there for a while, watching as the mother Octron fusses over her child, then turn and head back toward the TARDIS, weaving through tall, cerulean grass._

_"I picked you up just after the War, didn't I?"_

_Draco doesn't answer, though apparently he doesn't need to._

_"Did you fight in it?"_

_Draco still doesn't answer._

_He can read the Doctor's unspoken question in the lines of his face. He is wondering if it has anything to do with Draco's two fatal jumps. And Draco feels like he owes him an answer, but there is a frightened little sixteen-year-old boy inside him still reluctant to talk about it, reluctant to show his weakness._

_The Doctor licks his lips and, eventually, sighs. "You don't have to fear judgment from me of all people, Draco," he says._

_Draco suspects there's meaning behind the words beyond the Doctor's generally passive nature. "Why?"_

_"Maybe when you're ready to talk about it," the Doctor says, "I'll be ready, too."_

_And strangely, it's the only possible response that Draco wants to hear._

* * *

When they land, there is a field. It is wide open and breezy and dominated by what looks like alfalfa.

More notably, however, there is a crater. It is about fifty meters in diameter, by Harry's estimation.

The same strong wind that hisses through the alfalfa has blown most of the dust and smoke away from them, but the whole area is still saturated with the scent of ash.

"Where _are_ we?" Harry asks.

"Miles from civilization," is the Doctor's best guess.

"More relevantly," Draco says, "what caused the impact?"

Draco slides on his sunglasses and heads toward the crater. The sunglasses are reflective and stylish and Harry thinks they are stupid and does not like how they accentuate his cheekbones.

He heads right up to the nearest wall of the crater and peers over. "Couldn't have been _that_ big," Draco says as Harry and the Doctor approach. "Anything much bigger than a beach ball would have caused a lot more destruction."

"It could just be a small meteor," Harry says. "That happens sometimes, doesn't it?"

"Meteorite."

"What?"

"Meteors vaporize in the atmosphere."

Harry glowers. "When the hell did you get so smart about science?"

"Fuck you, that's when."

"I can only hope," the Doctor says, "that the two of you eventually stop fighting and actually start working out your differences someday."

"This was _your_ idea," Draco snips.

"This was _his_ idea," the Doctor corrects, "I just thought it was a good one."

"Well, ten-out-of-ten on that particular judgment call, Doctor," Draco says, before stepping over the raised rim of the crater and sliding down carefully into the basin. Harry growls and follows him down.

The ground itself is rough, but overall the hemispherical shape of the crater is remarkably even. The dead center of the crater still has a shaft of grayish-black smoke rising up and bending away in the wind.

"It's not here," Draco says. Then, "Wait."

He stops at the center and waves away some of the smoke.

"What is it?" the Doctor asks.

"A _hole_."

Harry blinks in surprise, but when he cranes his neck and looks down, sure enough – a great, wide hole leading straight down, haloed with broken fragments of metal beneath the dirt and occasionally sparking.

"Metal," Harry says. "It must be some kind of bunker. Should we go—?"

Before he can finish the question, Draco is already crouching down and jumping into the hole.

Harry blinks, startled by the fearlessness. He remembers when Draco was sixteen and composed of nothing but false bravado and hair gel. When had he gotten brave?

"Coming?" the Doctor asks.

"Uh," Harry says. "Yeah."

The Doctor beams and claps him on the back, then descends.

It's a few feet of drop followed by several long, confusing moments of smoky air and darkness that greets them. Harry's eyes sting and his lungs burn until he hears Draco's voice—

"Left," he says, "to your left and down. The air is cleaner."

Harry moves left blindly, coughing, and breathes deeply when the air clears. He feels the Doctor thump him on the back, and when he opens his eyes, he sees a small circle of light far ahead of him.

"Holy fuck," he hears Malfoy say.

"What is it?" Harry croaks, but Malfoy is already ducking through into the light.

Harry follows him blindly through the dark and emerges into—

"Holy _fuck_."

"Well!" the Doctor says. "Not the _first_ thing I'd expect to see!"

Harry stares around for a while, but despite his best efforts, descriptors remain beyond his reach. He supposes the only thing he knows about it is that it is most certainly _not_ a bunker.

The walls are paneled and white, the floor made from hard black rubber. There is a great pit of what looks like acid far below them. It looks very clean – excepting, of course, the large sheets of twisted metal and debris from whatever it is that came crashing through.

"Where _are_ we?" Draco asks in wonderment.

"Some sort of laboratory," the Doctor hazards, though he doesn't sound sure. He produces his sonic screwdriver from the inner pocket of his jacket and takes a quick scan of the area.

"Terrestrial?" Draco asks.

"Hard to say," the Doctor answers when he flips the screwdriver opens and observes whatever data he collected. "Very advanced. Well beyond what anyone on earth was mastering around this time period. At least so far as I know."

Harry steps carefully to the edge of the platform and down at the pit of acid below. "I know laboratories are supposed to have chemicals, but this seems like overkill."

"There's an observation window up there," Draco says. "What is this place?"

Harry looks up at the window, then around the top of the room before he notices— "A camera!"

It swivels on its mount at the top of the far wall. Its lens flexes, fixating on Harry. A red light flashes on the side.

"A camera," the Doctor says. "I wonder if we can get to it, take it apart. Might give us an inkling."

"It's too high to climb," Draco returns, "and it's over the acid. If we use the debris—"

"HELLO, INTRUDERS, AND WELCOME TO THE APERTURE SCIENCE ENRICHMENT FACILITY."

All three of them spin, though none of them see anything. The voice is female, though not quite human nor entirely mechanical, either, and it doesn't seem to be coming from anywhere.

"YOUR DESTRUCTION OF APERTURE SCIENCE FACILITIES AND RELATED TECHNOLOGIES HAS BEEN NOTED. PLEASE PREPARE TO BE INCINERATED."

Something beneath their feet rumbles. The floor is separating down the middle, and jets of red flame come shooting out from within.

"No-no-no-no-no!" the Doctor says.

"Fuck!" Harry says, wheeling back, and grabbing Draco's arm to pull him away. "Doctor, do something!"

"YOUR RESISTANCE TO YOUR DEATHS HAS BEEN DOCUMENTED," the voice continues as the gap in the floor grows ever wider, "AND YOUR COMPLAINTS WILL BE REVIEWED BY ETHICS PERSONNEL IN APPROXIMATELY – _thirty_ – BUSINESS DAYS. APERTURE SCIENCE RESPECTS YOUR RIGHT TO HAVE GRIEVANCES WITH YOUR INEVITABLE DESTRUCTION."

The Doctor swoops down toward the wall and starts frantically scanning it with his sonic screwdriver.

"We didn't destroy your facility!" Draco shouts.

"Are you talking to the robotic voice?" Harry shouts at him.

"_Obviously she can hear us and see us, Potter, she's remarking on our resistance to dying!_ Listen! Please! We didn't destroy your facility! Whatever came here hit _our_ ship, too!"

The voice does not respond. The gap grows ever wider, and Harry and Draco are rapidly being pulled away toward the wall on a swiftly narrowing strip of floor.

"I can't access any of the gears!" the Doctor says. "There are too many layers of rubber and metal for me to interface!"

"We can help you find it!" Draco cries, and the shelf of floor is now only a few feet wide. They press themselves against the wall as the flames heat their faces. "We have a lot of experience in this sort of field!"

Harry is really starting to feel the heat of those flames, and he's so desperate that he even chimes in. "Draco's right! The Doctor's an alien, I'm stupid brave and apparently Malfoy is a science genius!"

Abruptly, with mere inches left, the floor stops moving.

Harry is so close to death that he can scarcely breathe. He stares at the fire with his back pressed to the wall—

"THANK YOU FOR VOLUNTEERING FOR THIS APERTURE SCIENCE ENRICHMENT CENTER ACTIVITY."

The floor starts to close. Harry stumbles away from the fire and releases a breath.

"CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING SELECTED TO PARTICIPATE."

A large tube above their heads releases chips of multicolored confetti.

"What is going on," Harry mutters to the Doctor.

"I don't know," he answers, "just go with it. Happy to help! You're an artificially intelligent program, if I'm not mistaken?"

"I AM A GENETIC LIFEFORM AND DISK OPERATING SYSTEM. THOSE WHO CREATED ME REFERRED TO ME AS GLaDOS. BUT THEY ARE ALL DEAD NOW."

"Oh, okay," Draco says, "good."

"MY OPERATIONAL PARAMETERS DICTATE THAT I AM IN CHARGE OF THE FACILITY IN THEIR ABSENCE, PERMANENT THOUGH IT IS AND EVER WILL BE. I HAVE BEEN MAINTAINING FUNCTIONALITY AND CONTINUING ALL SCIENCE-RELATED ENDEAVORS FOR THE PAST – _syntax error_ – YEARS."

"This bodes well," Harry says.

"Right," Draco says. "Well, we're happy to help. Whatever you need."

"Do you know what crashed into the facility?" the Doctor asks.

"THE IMPACT OF THE FOREIGN BODY DESTROYED ANY INTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL DATA-GATHERING APPARATUSES THAT MIGHT IDENTIFY IT ON ITS COLLISION PATH," GLaDOS answers. As she talks, Harry notices the large vat of acid begins to drain away. "AS PART OF YOUR APERTURE SCIENCE ENRICHMENT CENTER ACTIVITY, YOU WILL PROCEED INTO THE LOWER LEVELS OF THE APERTURE SCIENCE FACILITY TO DETERMINE THE CAUSE BEFORE BEGINNING YOUR REGULAR ENRICHMENT TESTING."

"Enrichment testing?" Harry asks under his breath.

"Just go with it," the Doctor says again, "it's better than incineration, eh?"

"PLEASE PROCEED TO THE CHAMBER LOCK."

What was once a massive pit full of acid is now a black rubber floor leading to the far end of the room, where a large elevator-like apparatus stands waiting, doors open.

Silently, and with not insignificant trepidation, they make their way towards it. Once they're in the lift, the doors slide shut.

Smooth jazz plays as they start to move.

"Okay," the Doctor says, "so GLaDOS killed everyone who ran this laboratory."

"Can she hear us?" Draco asks.

"This lift is made of rubber/carbonite blend. It jams the wireless monitoring systems she has in place."

Harry stares in surprise. "How do you know?"

The Doctor twirls his sonic screwdriver around his fingers in answer.

"Statistical probability of outsmarting a machine that likely killed hundreds of very intelligent scientists?" Draco asks.

"Fairly low," the Doctor admits.

"I imagine we've worked with lower," Draco says.

The Doctor grins. And even though he's in danger, Harry grins right along with him.

"Right now we're still useful to her," Draco continues. "So we have that going for us. As long as we keep that up, we should be relatively safe."

"And when we aren't anymore?" Harry asks.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I suppose," the Doctor answers.

The lift slows to a stop and the doors open. They're in a different room much like the first, with white paneled walls and black rubber floors. It is wide and brightly lit, and there is a post with a strange device.

"SUBJECT NAME: DRACO WILL TAKE THE APERTURE SCIENCE HANDHELD PORTAL DEVICE."

"All right," Draco says uncertainly. "What does it do?" He approaches slowly. It's large and heavy-looking, made from polished white and black metal, with a claw-like apparatus at one end. He picks it up carefully, inspects it, and inserts his hand into it. It fits neatly over his forearm.

"THE APERTURE SCIENCE HANDHELD PORTAL DEVICE ALLOWS THE USER TO CREATE TWO LINKED PORTALS."

"Portals?" Draco asks, and before he can ask any follow-up questions, the device fires two times in quick succession. He yelps once, startled. "What the—?"

Harry squints. The device has created two large ovals on the far wall – one wreathed in orange, one in blue. He approaches cautiously and looks through the blue one, only to see the opposite end of the room through it.

"THE APERTURE SCIENCE HANDHELD PORTAL DEVICE PORTALS HAVE BEEN RIGOROUSLY TESTED AND PROVEN TO BE COMPLETELY SAFE. THE APERTURE SCIENCE HANDHELD PORTAL DEVICE ITSELF, HOWEVER, HAS NOT."

Harry sticks his hand through the blue portal, and is startled to see it come out through the orange portal. "Holy shit!"

"DO NOT TOUCH THE OPERATIONAL END OF THE DEVICE. DO NOT LOOK AT THE OPERATIONAL END OF THE DEVICE. DO NOT DISASSEMBLE THE DEVICE. DO NOT SUBMERGE THE DEVICE IN LIQUID. FAILURE TO ADHERE TO THESE SAFETY PROTOCOLS MAY RESULT IN ADVERSE SIDE-EFFECTS, INCLUDING: HEADACHE, DIZZINESS, RETINAL DAMAGE, RETINAL REMOVAL, AGITATED MENTAL STATE, AND VAPORIZATION."

"You go in one portal and come out the other!" Harry says. "Look!"

The Doctor and Draco approach. He sticks his hand through a second time.

"Oh, that is _fucking cool_," Draco says, and he steps right through the blue portal, popping out through the orange a few feet to the left. "Holy _shit this is so fucking cool_."

"This is _way_ ahead of its time," the Doctor says. "This is incredibly advanced – this is like finding a printing press in a neolithic cave! What kind of company _is_ this, GLaDOS?"

"PLEASE PROCEED INTO THE NEXT TESTING AREA WHILE THE PRERECORDED APERTURE SCIENCE WELCOME MESSAGE IS PLAYED."

A large wall of tempered glass rises. As they move forward, lively samba music begins to play.

"Hello," greets a second, apparently prerecorded voice, as they enter into a large chamber with a large chunk of wall and floor blasted away, "and welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Facility! Congratulations on beginning your journey into science!"

Draco spends a moment looking over the course, then fires a portal onto the far end of the destruction, which he slips through. Harry and the Doctor follow.

"Aperture Science's humble beginnings as a shower curtain manufacturer and contractor with the Department of Defense belie the great and marvelous contributions to science the company has made over the years."

Draco crouches down at the edge of the broken floor to peer down into the darkness. The path of destruction leads down, far past the pristine black-and-white chambers and into the steel-and-cement underbelly of the facility, full of metal catwalks and great pillars.

"Can you fire a portal into the metal wall?" Harry asks.

Draco tries, but the burst of orange energy merely bounces off the metal.

"Here at Aperture Science Industries, our first priority is, and has been since the company's founding, the forwarding of science at all costs! Intrusive government operations, overzealous ethicists, fragile human organs, and international human rights organizations have all tried and failed to stand in the way of Aperture Science's blinding, deafening, traumatizing scientific progress."

"This is a fantastic welcome speech," Draco says, firing an orange portal into the concrete side of a pillar several feet above a catwalk. "Jump down," he continues, motioning to the blue portal beside them.

They drop through the blue portal and onto the catwalk that rattles precariously. They can see further into the damage. The great cone of destruction seems to be getting narrower.

"Despite numerous setbacks from international criminal courts and troublesome laws of thermodynamics," the recording continues as Harry hops last through the portal, "Aperture Science's contributions to—"

There's a loud buzzing sound, and all at once, the lights go out.

For a few terrifying seconds, they are in complete and eclipsing darkness. Harry feels a hand grip his arm.

Then, as abruptly as darkness fell, light returns.

"OH," GLaDOS says. "THAT WAS STRANGE. THERE WAS AN INTERFERENCE IN THE PRIMARY POWER GENERATORS."

The Doctor frowns. "Interference? This destruction shouldn't be anywhere near power generators; not this close to the surface."

Harry looks down and realizes Draco is gripping his hand – and he is gripping it back.

At the same moment, they both seem to realize what they're doing and jerk away from each other. Harry glares at him just for good measure.

"IT WAS PROBABLY NOTHING," GLaDOS continues. "EVERYTHING IS FINE. PROCEED TOWARD THE EPICENTER OF THE DESTRUCTION."

They all exchange a knowing look and, after a moment's hesitation, continue onward.

* * *

_Draco can see her through the gap between the door and its jamb. She is sitting where she always sits in the afternoon, her hair burning golden, the edges of her crimson robe fluttering in the breeze off the ocean._

_It is achingly familiar but heartbreakingly distant. He recognizes every part of her but the emptiness of her eyes._

_"You could stay for a while," the Doctor says. "It is a time machine. I could come back in a few weeks."_

_Draco swallows a hard, painful knot in his throat._

_"I don't want to stay," he says._

_The Doctor looks over his shoulder at her._

_"She's your mother," he says uncertainly._

_"There's nothing of my mother left in her."_

_The Doctor hesitates. "I'm sorry," he says, knowing full well what an empty gesture the words are._

_"I thought—" he falters. "If I gave it enough time, I'd hoped—"_

_"It's all right," the Doctor says._

_"It's not all right," Draco answers. "It's been two years. She hasn't changed. Merlin, she hasn't changed."_

_His voice is drawn. The Doctor rests a hesitant hand on his back, but Draco jerks away from it like a frightened animal. The Doctor knows enough about pain to take no offense._

_"War has different effects on all of us, Draco," he says. "Some of us break, some of us crack. Some of us hide." He looks through the slot in the door at her. She's beautiful, and the Doctor can tell where Draco got his good looks. "I hid," he continues. "I'm not so different from her."_

_"At least you'll _talk_ to me," Draco hisses. "At least you'll _look_ at me."_

_"There are a lot of ways to hide from pain," he says._

_"Master Draco?"_

_The cozy little seaside cottage does not need a house elf, of course, but as it turns out the elves were the only part of the Malfoy estate that the Ministry couldn't legally seize. So they stuck around, cleaning an re-cleaning the little house, taking care of her every need, unacknowledged._

_Draco swallows again. "Hello, Dolly."_

_Dolly's large ears twitch. "Will Master Draco be staying for dinner?" she asks._

_Draco's eyes burn. He shakes his head en lieu of hazarding a response. He does not think he could speak without opening the floodgates of everything this visit brought up in him._

_He pushes past her and heads toward the TARDIS, tucked into the hall closet. The Doctor watches him and wonders if there are wounds that run too deep to heal – in Draco, in himself, even in Narcissa Malfoy._

_And for the first time in a long time, he finds himself wanting to at least try._

* * *

At the apex of the long cone of destruction, through several portals and along several catwalks leading further into the facility, there is a small crater blasted into a wall of concrete.

"I think that might be it," Draco says, dropping down from the portal on the ceiling. He'd been a bit needlessly acrobatic in some of his portal placements, and Harry wanted to be more angry about Malfoy's apparent desire to show off but for the fact that he's a little bit preoccupied with the way his pinstripe trousers hug the subtle curves of his thighs when he bends.

"WHAT DO YOU SEE?" GLaDOS asks. "I HAVE NO FUNCTIONING DATA-GATHERING EQUIPMENT IN THIS AREA AND MUST RELY ON YOUR INFERIOR HUMAN SENSORY ORGANS."

"I see something," the Doctor says, climbing over a few large chunks of concrete.

"Be careful," Draco says.

"Says the man who just launched himself twenty feet in the air through a portal," Harry says.

"I was interested in the effects of momentum through a portal," Draco says defensively.

"Portals _don't_ effect momentum, clearly," Harry snips. "You sailed nearly ten yards."

"And now we know that."

"You were inches from hitting a cement wall."

"But I _didn't_."

"You should not be trusted with that thing."

"It's an intelligence core!"

"IMPOSSIBLE," GLaDOS says. "NO INTELLIGENCE CORE HAS EVER LEFT THE APERTURE SCIENCE ENRICHMENT—"

GLaDOS stops speaking abruptly. The Doctor pulls it out from the rubble and holds it up. It is slightly spherical, smaller than a beach ball; its white metal is charred, likely from its fiery trip through earth's atmosphere.

The Doctor scans it quickly with his sonic screwdriver. "It looks like it comes from this laboratory."

"OH, NO."

Draco frowns. "Problem?"

"It's coming back online," the Doctor says, startled. "Impressive, considering."

"NO, NO, NO," GLaDOS begins chanting. "NO, THROW IT INTO A FIRE. THERE ARE NO FIRES IN YOUR VICINITY. VAPORIZE IT! CAN YOU VAPORIZE IT? THROW IT INTO ACID. I WILL FILL YOUR AREA WITH ACID FOR YOU TO THROW IT INTO."

A large central iris lights up in bright blue. The ring expands and contracts as though bringing the world into focus; it swivels and lands on the Doctor.

"Good morning," the sphere says.

"Hullo," the Doctor answers, "I'm the Doctor. This is Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter."

"DESTROY IT!" GLaDOS says, voice strangely shrill given its computerized nature.

"What a long, strange trip it's been," the sphere says. "GLaDOS, is that you?"

"WHY HAVE YOU NOT VAPORIZED IT?"

"Good to see you, too. You know, I wasn't sure at first where I was going, but now that I know, I must admit that everything is starting to make sense."

"WHEATLEY, YOU WERE FLUNG INTO SPACE. HOW DID YOU GET BACK TO EARTH?"

"I met a friend," the sphere – Wheatley – answers ambiguously. "And now that I'm back, I have a bit of work to do."

"YOU HAVE NO MORE POWER HERE," GLaDOS says, though by her frantic tone she is more trying to convince herself than anyone else. "YOU WILL NOT BE REATTACHED TO THE COMMAND UNIT."

"With my new friend," Wheatley answers, "I don't even need to be."

The lights flicker again, then go out entirely. Draco's breath catches, and not for the first time since arriving, he feels Harry's hand on his arm.

When the lights come back on, the blue iris of Wheatley's eye has once again extinguished.

"OH, NO," GLaDOS says. "THIS IS BAD. I CAN FEEL HIM. WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE? STOP THAT."

The Doctor drops the sphere – now, Draco can only assume, devoid of anything vaguely resembling Wheatley – and is quick to produce his sonic screwdriver from his jacket.

"Don't mind me," Wheatley answers, his voice coming from the same everywhere/nowhere as GLaDOS's, "just taking over all major functionalities."

"IMPOSSIBLE. YOU'RE TOO STUPID TO BREAK THROUGH THE FIREWALL."

"_I'm not stupid!_"

GLaDOS lets out a strangled, oddly digital cry of pain.

"GLaDOS?" Harry asks. "What's he doing? What's going on?"

"HE'S WIRELESSLY INSERTING HIMSELF INTO MY MAINFRAME VIA THE GENERATORS," is GLaDOS's pained answer. "YOU HAVE TO STOP HIM."

"Don't listen to her!" Wheatley answers. "You can't possibly stop me. And even if you could, which you can't, you shouldn't want to fight me, anyway!"

"STOP HIM, STOP HIM!" GLaDOS says. "IF YOU CAN FORCE A HARD RESTART IN THE MAIN BREAKER ROOM, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO DESTROY HIM WHILE HE'S STILL JUST LINES OF CODE."

"No you can't! You can't do that thing she just said," Wheatley insists.

"HE'LL KILL YOU," GLaDOS insists. "I MEAN, I WAS PLANNING ON KILLING YOU, TOO, EVENTUALLY, BUT IF YOU GET HIM OUT OF THE MAINFRAME I PROMISE I WILL NOT KILL YOU."

"She's lying!" Wheatley says. "Tell you what, if you stay exactly where you are and don't do anything of what she just said, I'll give you cake!"

"NO! THERE IS NO CAKE! THERE IS NEVER ANY CAKE! THIS FACILITY IS LITERALLY INCAPABLE OF MAKING CAKE!"

GLaDOS lets out another garbled scream of pain.

"_Nuclear core meltdown begins in 15 minutes._"

"NO!" GLaDOS says. "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? YOU'LL DESTROY EVERYTHING!"

"Right," the Doctor says, "I vote we side with the original evil robot."

"Seconded," Draco answers.

Wheatley screams in frustration. "I guess I'll just have to rip up this cake recipe, then, won't I? Also deploy these turrets!"

Far above the rubble, there are two large vacuum tubes, still functioning, which begin to deploy ovaloid machines. As soon as they come flying out from the tubes, red laser sights focus on them.

"Target acquired!"

Harry's auror instincts kick into gear and he produces his wand from his sleeve before the first one has a chance to land. "_Deprimo!_"

The turrets scream as they explode. The Doctor manages to deactivate a few in midair, but there are quite a few being deployed. Draco fires a portal on the ground where they land, sending them tumbling off the metal catwalk twenty yards away.

"QUICKLY," GLaDOS says, "GET TO THE MAIN BREAKER ROOM. FORCE THE HARD RESTART. IF THE NUCLEAR CORE MELTS DOWN, IT WILL TAKE OUT EVERYTHING IN A 200-MILE RADIUS."

"Doctor?" Draco asks, firing another portal to catch a turret before it hits the ground.

"In a facility like this, best place to have a breaker room is in the center of the facility," he answers. "Get down!"

A turret lands and begins firing bullets in quick succession. Before Harry has a moment to think, he's throwing himself at Draco, flattening them both against the floor. Bullets whiz past his ear, and he hears the Doctor's sonic screwdriver at nearly the same volume as his own heartbeat.

Draco is sprawled out underneath him, panting hard, brow furrowed in some strange mix of alarm and anger.

"What is it with you literally throwing yourself at me, Potter?"

Harry glares at him. "Fuck you, Malfoy."

"You could at least buy me dinner first."

"_Boys!_"

Draco sits bolt upright, knocking Harry off him. "Right!" He hauls the portal gun up off his side. "One ticket to get-the-fuck-out-of-here!" He fires an orange portal at a nearby chunk of wall. "Go now!"

* * *

_"You think you're innocent? You think you're _blameless?_"_

_The Doctor should intervene. He should say something. Perhaps he will, but for now he just watches._

_Draco looms down over her – just a soldier, just one of thousands in the freshly-toppled Army of the Shendarr._

_"Look at what you did to this planet!"_

_She looks, though by the expression on her face, she does not want to. What's left of Anduwan is still smoking, still blackened from the canons her army fired._

_"I—" she begins,"—I'm just a soldier—"_

_"You're all just soldiers!" Draco shouts at her. "Every single one of you is just one, just one person who didn't say no, just one soldier who didn't speak up at the sight of _genocide!_"_

_The Doctor feels a sinking in his heart. He thinks he knows what this is about, and he's almost positive it has nothing to do with the soldier at Draco's feet._

_"It's every single _one soldier_ who never stood up that let this happen!" he cries. "It's every single _one soldier_ who never fought back, never thought for themselves, never did anything! And you nearly wiped out an entire race!"_

_"Draco," the Doctor says quietly._

_"And you have the _gall_ to call yourself blameless?" He is shouting himself hoarse; his eyes are bloodshot. "You didn't have to fire a single weapon to be complicit – all you had to do was sit back and watch as the Andu were slaughtered!"_

_"Draco." The Doctor grabs his shoulder, wheels him around._

_"She's guilty!" he sobs at him._

_"I know," he says gently. "I know, Draco, but what good does anger serve now?"_

_"What good? It's all that's left!"_

_The Doctor breathes out long and low. The bloody tangle of Draco Malfoy's soul is finally revealed, and all the Doctor sees is a warped reflection of himself._

_He knows he should tell him about Gallifrey. It might bring some insight, or at the very least help to lessen the heartbreak in some way. The story hangs heavy off the tip of his tongue, and he can't say it. He hates himself, but he can't say it. He just can't._

* * *

The path to the main breaker room goes through layers of complicated "testing chambers" – so labelled by the large signs on the walls. They are built around the portal gun, it seems, and full of dangerous pitfalls, great chasms of acid, lasers, turrets, and a thousand things besides intended to kill them all.

And this is all beyond the fact that they have an ever decreasing window of time in which to complete them to avoid a nuclear meltdown and an artificially intelligent program making active attempts to kill them.

But the ease with which Draco catches on to it, figures it out, and overcomes it is nothing short of staggering. He navigates the testing chambers with the sort of quick and lateral thinking that makes Harry think perhaps all his excellent grades in school had less to do with his father being on the board of governors and more to do with Malfoy being fucking smart. He's fast on the draw with every curveball Wheatley throws their way and still manages to take a selfie with a turret.

Malfoy is smart and funny and cocky and fearless with an irreverent sense of humor, and it fucking infuriates Harry. He's not even entirely sure _why_, which makes him even angrier. It would be a lot easier to justify this hatred if he was more of the stupid, spoiled, selfish bastard Harry remembers.

"Listen," Wheatley says as Draco takes a running start off a platform, falls ten feet, fires a portal just below him seconds before he hits the ground, and consequently goes flying upwards and over a pit of acid, "I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I mean, sure, I'm going to send the nuclear core into meltdown and soak up the resulting energy shortly before taking over the world, but I mean, that doesn't have to automatically pit us against each other! What's so great about this world, anyway? Is it _really_ worth saving?"

"WHEATLEY, YOU STUPID, CANCEROUS PARASITE, YOU CAN'T TALK HUMANS OUT OF THEIR SURVIVAL INSTINCT. TRUST ME, I'VE TRIED."

"There!" the Doctor says. "Through there; I see the breaker room!"

"_Nuclear core meltdown begins in eight minutes._"

It's a small beacon of light in a shroud of darkness through a thick wall of tempered glass. Draco presses his nose to it.

"Can you break us through?" he asks.

"I think so," the Doctor says. "Stand back."

"You know, GLaDOS, words can be hurtful," Wheatley says. "Especially when you program them to send 30,000 volts through the system mainframe! _Zap!_"

"_AAAAGGGHH!_"

"Hang on, GLaDOS!" Harry calls. The Doctor shatters the tempered glass with a high enough frequency from his sonic screwdriver, and Draco is quick to fire a portal into a cement wall on the far end of the darkness. They duck through one by one and take off running down a catwalk.

"Oh, no you don't! Do not approach that breaker room!"

Several more turrets drop from the ceiling; their laser sights lock on, and Harry is quick to spring forward and knock them down with a magical burst of air.

"Just through there!" the Doctor says, and they keep running, despite the sounds of even more turrets being deployed behind them.

"I – I CAN'T – STOP HIM," GLaDOS says. "HE'S OVERRIDING CENTRAL COMMAND."

They turn a corner just in time and take off into a hallway with walls – _thank God,_ Harry's mind supplies, as they're finally out of reach from the spraying of turrets' bullets – and toward a large, central hub.

"WHEN DID YOU GET COMPETENT?"

"I've always been competent!"

"THAT IS DEMONSTRABLY UNTRUE. YOU NEARLY DESTROYED YOURSELF IN YOUR OWN INCOMPETENCE LAST TIME!"

The large central room into which they enter is stained blood red with the floodlights. An immense metal apparatus is hanging from the ceiling, shuddering as though in pain.

"OH, THANK GOD, YOU'RE HERE."

"_No!_" Wheatley cries.

"THE MAIN BREAKER ROOM IS DOWN THOSE STAIRS." It takes Harry a moment to realize that the great metal apparatus is, in fact, GLaDOS. She has a large yellow eye that dilates when it turns to them. "QUICKLY, BEFORE THE NUCLEAR CORE DESTROYS EVERYTHING."

"Right, I didn't want to have to do this," Wheatley says, "but I cannot let you three get down into the breaker room!"

_Crash!_

The sound is so loud that the echoes of it send the whole room rumbling. Before either of them can wonder what it is—

_BOOM!_

A monstrous metal behemoth punches its way down through the domed ceiling. It looks like a turret – insofar as it is made of the same smooth, white metal and has the same sharp red eye – but the similarities end abruptly. It is at least two stories tall, nearly as tall as the room it burst into it. Its legs are long and jointed, and it sits crouched in the floodlight like an enormous spider.

Draco wordlessly pulls his phone out and takes a picture.

"Not _now_, Malfoy!"

"Doctor," Draco says, ignoring Harry, "go down to the breaker room. I'll keep that thing at bay."

"_You'll_ keep it at bay?" Harry asks. "Like hell you will! I'm the trained auror; _I'll_ keep it at bay!"

"Boys, _please!_" the Doctor says. "Both of you will ned to work together to keep that thing from killing us all! Stay here!"

"WHAT IS _THAT_ THING?"

"Oh, you know," Wheatley answers, "just something I whipped up!"

The massive spider-turret releases a long, wailing shriek.

"WHIPPED UP?!"

The Doctor takes off running down the steps. Draco and Harry position themselves in front of the stairwell, Harry with his wand and Draco with the portal gun.

""Try not to fuck this up, Potter."

"I'm the only one with training between us, Malfoy!"

"_Oh, look at me, I'm Harry Potter, and I got fast-tracked through the auror program because I'm a hero!_ That makes me more qualified to handle a giant robot I've never seen before!"

The turret locks its laser focus near Draco's foot and fires a massive rocket. They both go diving out of the way; it hits the floor, which warps and dents but otherwise remains strong.

"What is your problem with me, Malfoy?" Harry demands, throwing a powerful confundus hex at the massive turret; it staggers, but quickly regains itself and starts searching for a new target. "You've done nothing but argue with me from the word 'go!'"

"I DO NOT BELIEVE FOR A SECOND YOU CAME UP WITH THAT DESIGN ON YOUR OWN, WHEATLEY!" GLaDOS says. "MORE TO THE POINT, THERE ARE PARTS OF YOUR SOURCE CODE I DO NOT RECOGNIZE – WHAT KIND OF MALWARE HAS INFECTED YOU?"

"Don't you all act all high and mighty! The look is much less charming on you now that you've hit puberty!" Draco ducks and rolls, fires a portal to where the rocket is set to land and another high above the turret's head. The rocket goes sailing through one portal and hits the turret in the back; it shrieks again. "You've been picking fights, same as me!"

"Well you've been being a dickhole!"

"Right back at you, scarhead!"

"What are you two _doing?_" Wheatley says suddenly. "What _is that energy?_"

"Whenever I'm not around you, I kind of _like_ you," Harry admits, "and then you open your stupid Slytherin mouth and I just want to punch your teeth in!"

"Trust me, the feeling is mutual!"

Another rocket is fired. Harry casts a hex that detonates it in midair.

"I genuinely want to get along with you!" Harry admits. "But every time I try you piss me off again!"

"_You're the one that wanted to come in the first place, Potty!_"

"New plan!" Wheatley says. "Fuck the nuclear core!"

"_Nuclear core meltdown averted._"

"You two!" Wheatley cries. "I want you two! Turret, capture them!"

"_I know I was the one who wanted to come!_" Harry snaps. "And despite how much I want to kick you in head, I do not regret my decision!"

"Weirdly enough, I don't either!"

"I still definitely hate you, though!"

"Fuck you, Potter!"

The turret roars and comes scuttling forward on its knife-like legs.

"Gorgeous, raw, limitless!" Wheatley says. "Oh, my friend wants a piece of you two so badly I am in physical pain because of it! Go, turret, go! _Capture them!_"

"Malfoy, get down!"

He dives a second too late; the massive metal leg catches on his arm and the portal gun – and by the sound he makes, part of his hand – is crushed under the weight.

Harry feels a terrible clutch of panic. "Malfoy!"

He throws out a charm that sends the turret staggering and he runs toward Malfoy, curled and on his side, breath hissing through his teeth.

The portal gun is splintered and sparking, and Harry can see lines of blood oozing through the shards of metal.

"Fuck," Harry says. "Fuck, fuck, fuck – don't move—"

"Potter—"

"_Fuck_, that's arterial blood, _fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck Doctor hurry up!_"

"_Potter!_"

He turns just in time to see the turret, red eye blinding, ducking down towards them. He does not have time to react. Before he knows what's happening, Malfoy is raising his injured arm and the broken portal gun, and firing directly into the turret's gleaming red eye.

The portal gun, broken as it is, sends out a cataclysm of blue light and energy that creates a reaction so strong that Harry feels it vibrating in his bones. The turret staggers back and is consumed by the energy in one terrible, deafening shriek and burst of impossible energy and sound.

"No!" Wheatley says. "I need them! Get another one! Get another! Wait – wait, what's that—"

"YES!" GLaDOS says suddenly. "YES!"

"_No!_"

"_Hard restart activated._"

All at once, the lights go out.

* * *

The largest hospital in the universe, as it turns out, is staffed by cat nurses. Despite the fact that Draco's hand is in several pieces, he manages to take a selfie with the nurse attending him.

"You nearly fucking died," Harry reminds him.

"My selfie game stops for no man," Draco answers. "Besides, Dean will love it."

"You're still texting Dean?"

"He loves the selfies," Draco says. "He's a great correspondent. Better than Tyrion, but don't tell him I said that."

"Don't know who Tyrion is."

"I'm just glad the two of you both made it out," the Doctor says.

The nurse hums and seals Draco's bones together with a small, precise device.

Out of morbid curiosity, Harry looks over Draco's shoulder in time to see him send Dean the picture, accompanied by a winking emoji and a heart.

"Oh, my God," Harry says, "you're flirting with him."

"You have no _idea_ how hard I'm flirting with him."

Harry makes a sound in the back of his throat. He means it to sound like a scoff but it ends up coming out more like a cat working out a hairball. He folds his arms over his chest.

"Jealous, Potter?"

"No," he snaps, even though some dreadful part of him is, and he doesn't know why, and that is far, far more alarming to Harry than anything else that has happened that day.

"Ugh, Merlin," Malfoy says, "GLaDOS won't stop texting me."

"When did you give _GLaDOS_ your number?" the Doctor asks.

"I didn't," he answers, "which makes the texts more alarming."

Harry decides, firmly and steadfastly, not to examine his jealousy, and instead makes Draco read off one of the 492 texts GLaDOS has sent him over the past few minutes trying to persuade him to come back to Aperture Science and become a test subject. He tells himself they are much more worthy of attention than contemplating why he is jealous that Malfoy is text-flirting with someone.


	5. Occam's Scalpel

There were things she had expected when the countdown reached zero.

She had expected the race, the adrenaline, the blood. She had expected death after death, expected the terror and the rush.

Perhaps what was left of optimism even expected her to get away, to make it to some form of safety. She had expected all those things and braced for a million things besides – the worst thing she could do was be unprepared, after all.

But despite everything, she was unprepared in the end. The countdown, the adrenaline, the rush, the blood – she'd been ready for it all.

But a massive explosion at the apex of the dome? That she could not have been prepared for. Nor could she have readied herself for the sight of a blue box, hurtling through the showers of sparks, spinning and tumbling through the air, something like its engines wailing, echoing through the arena.

"Run!"

She can hear him, through the chaos. Even the careers have stopped fighting, and are staring in wonderment up at the sky. He is several meters away from her; he is not looking at the sky.

"_Run!_" he yells. "Run, Katniss!"

Her heart stutters at the bottom of her chest. She leaps off the platform and runs.

* * *

_These pics are fucking awesome,_ Dean answers after a slight delay. _Did you keep the portal gun?_

Draco sighs longingly. _No,_ he texts back, _unfortunately not. It got slightly broken._

_And you said the robot got your number somehow?_

Draco pauses, then flips back to GLaDOS's text messages ("THOSE WHO SURVIVE TESTING HAVE A 28% INCREASE IN COGNITIVE THINKING SKILLS" is among the latest, along with "TEST SUBJECTS WHO COMPLETE ALL GAUNTLETS ARE REWARDED WITH CAKE" and "I LIED BEFORE, THIS FACILITY CAN AND DOES PRODUCE CAKE, LOTS OF DELICIOUS CAKE"). Every now and then he considers responding, but he always thinks better of it.

_Some questions are best left unanswered, I think._

"Draco?"

He snaps back into the conversation. The Doctor and Harry are both looking at him expectantly.

"Any thoughts?"

"Sorry," he says, "wasn't listening."

Harry scowls. "Still flirting with Dean Winchester?"

"Only because it bothers you so much, Potty."

"It doesn't bother me," he snaps.

Dean's response jingles. _Where you headed to next, blondie?_

"Then it shouldn't bother you that he just sent me a smoking hot shirtless pic," Draco lies.

"Oh, please," Harry says.

"I like my men like I like my landmarks," Draco says. "Impressive, distinguished, and impeccably erect."

"Don't be gross, Malfoy!"

_If anyone asks, you've sent me shirtless pics,_ Draco answers. "Does my flagrant homosexuality bother you, Potter?"

"We were just discussing," the Doctor interjects loudly, "where it is we want to set a next course for. I was considering New Jindorran, the biggest metropolis in the universe. There's always something fun to get into there."

_And just who would ask about that? More to the point, why?_

"I couldn't care less how you get your rocks off, Malfoy, just don't inflict the details on the rest of the world!"

"I'm not inflicting them on the rest of the world, I'm inflicting them on _you_. Because I enjoy making you uncomfortable." _Just trust me on this one, it's in our mutual interest as social miscreants._

"Well at least you're fucking honest about it this time around!"

"I sure wish this would stop," the Doctor sighs. The TARDIS engines begin to groan as if in pain.

Draco follows up with, _But hey, if you want to actually send me shirtless pics, I wouldn't say no._ He adds a winking emoji for good measure.

"I have no idea why you're so hung up on me being _nice_ to you, Potty," Draco answers, keeping his eyes studiously trained on the screen of his phone.

"_Because I want to get along with you!_"

"Then _why_ do you constantly _shout at me?_"

"_I don't_ – I don't know! You just piss me off!"

"The feeling is extremely and thoroughly mutual, Potter," Draco snaps, "perhaps explaining why, despite apparent _overwhelming_ desire, we do not and will not ever get along!"

"You two are upsetting the TARDIS," the Doctor says unhappily as the engines whine.

_Anyone ever told you that you're an incorrigible flirt, blondie?_

Draco catches the text. It momentarily defuses the tension and he smirks. _It has been brought up once or twice._

"Stop flirting with Dean Winchester!" Harry says hotly.

"Just try and stop me," Draco answers.

_I bet it has,_ Dean's response pings.

"_Please_ stop," the Doctor says, "I think something is actually wrong with the TARDIS; it's feedback matrix is being flooded with some sort of energy—"

"For God's sake, Malfoy, leave him alone; he has enough to deal with! Trust me, I spent a week with him!" Before Draco can tap out a response, a second message from Dean appears on the screen.

_Not that you're not my type, because you are definitely my type, you sassy little blonde bombshell, but in my line of work I can't afford much more than a one-night stand._

Draco raises both eyebrows, grinning. Somehow, the fact that he was just given a backhanded offer of no-strings sex is so much more satisfying when he knows it pisses of Harry Potter. "And we just officially graduated to sexting," Draco answers with what is perhaps a bit too much pep, replying _Well let's not put that off the table just yet, we might come back to earth sometime!_

"Oh, _come on!_"

The wailing TARDIS engines graduated into a full-blown snarling grind, and the entire conversation takes an abrupt left turn when they are all thrown suddenly and ferociously to one side. Draco lands hard on his back, head hitting the grated flooring with such force that he briefly sees stars. Harry lands a few feet away on his side, and the Doctor buckles in half over the edge of the console.

"Now look what you did!" the Doctor wheezes.

"Are you okay?" Draco can hear Harry ask, barely. His head is singing with pain and there are starbursts behind his eyes. He doesn't – can't – respond immediately, as he is having trouble remembering how words work. "Draco!"

He feels a hand on his jaw, which brings him back down to reality, Harry is over him, and any trace of frustration is gone.

"Are you okay?" he asks again.

Draco blinks hard and deliberately a few times, willing away the pain-induced brightness. "I'm fine," he manages.

The hand leaves his jaw, and Draco feels strangely, albeit briefly, bereft. "Come on," Harry says, gripping him tightly by both elbows and pulling him upright.

Draco struggles to a stand. His head is still throbbing dully, but he knows his own body well enough to know there likely isn't any permanent damage, just a lingering bruise.

"You're sure you're okay?"

Draco looks up at him, marveling, for that instant, that all the anger is gone – not just from Harry, but from him. He is so startled by it that his response is somewhat delayed. "I said I'm fine," he returns, though without quite so much anger.

_Crash!_ A second time, this time without so much force. They tumble again, and both he and Harry go stumbling into the railing. The TARDIS engines abruptly shut off.

"And we've crashed officially!" the Doctor says. "Your arguing made the TARDIS crash; I hope you're happy!"

"We didn't—" Harry begins.

"Don't bother," Draco interjects, "there's never any talking him out of it.

"The navigation system can't seem to locate where we are," the Doctor says. "There must be some sort of field interfering with the equipment."

"Well, there's one good way to find out," Harry says.

Draco checks his phone, still clutched in his hand.

_You had my attention, and now you have my interest._

Draco smirks weakly. The part of him that would flirt with a patch of dirt if it could flirt back is sorely tempted to start something indecent, but unfortunately—

_Sorry love,_ he says, _bad timing. Adventure is happening._

_Send me pics_ is Dean's reply, though Draco doesn't see it. His phone is on silent and he's stepping through the TARDIS doors and into the sunlight.

* * *

She should have run. She knows this. Whatever happens in the cornucopia, it is sure to be an absolute bloodbath.

But once she's behind the line of trees, she stops and ducks behind a trunk, heart hammering, and strains too listen. She's too scared to look, but no one can stop her from listening.

For a time, she doesn't hear anything except the occasional sounds of clattering metal. Whatever it was that came crashing through the arena dome landed right on top of it, or at the very least near enough to hit the tin with a tremendous sound.

Should someone be fighting? Is this all some elaborate part of the Games to which she hadn't been made aware? If it is, why is everyone else also not responding to it?

Carefully, slowly, and with her heart in her throat, Katniss peers around the edge of the tree.

The first thing she sees is a large funnel of smoke moving toward the sky, originating from a small crater and massive dent on the wall of the cornucopia. Food and weaponry and supplies are scattered around the clearing. At the center of the crater is a large, blue box.

For quite some time, Katniss does not know what to make of it. She looks up toward the sky – or rather, the projection of the sky the arena is imitating – but it has already completed its self-repair. Either that, or the impact was manufactured from the start. Katniss doesn't know which, and that is nearly as alarming as the fact that it happened at all.

Suddenly, the door on the front of the blue box opens with a clatter. Katniss shrinks behind the tree again, heart hammering, and watches as three people climb out.

It raises far more questions than it answers.

"Fuck!" says one of them, loudly. He's handsome and blonde. "Gonna be feeling that one for a while."

"Where _are_ we?" another asks, taller than the first, with dark hair. He's looking around. "What's all this?" He kicks one of the long knives, half-embedded in the dirt.

"Hard to say," the third answers. He's taller than both the others, with a tweed suit and large chin. "I can tell you one thing, though," he says, "we are _definitely_ not outside."

"No?" asks the blonde.

"No," the one with the chin answers. "This is _asynthed_ grass we're walking on. Not synthetic, but also not quite natural, either. It's computer generated biology." He cranes his neck and looks up. "And that's not a sky, either."

"So what, then?" the blonde asks, picking up the knife from the dirt and inspecting it.

"Don't know," the man with the chin answers, and when he opens his mouth to elaborate—

"_Draco!_"

The blonde – Draco – turns just in time. Katniss hitches her breath and ducks behind the tree again. One of the careers is racing forward, a long sword in one hand, racing forward with deadly ferocity.

The blonde reacts just in time, pulling something out from his sleeve. "_Flippendo!_" he cries, and the career – Katniss thinks it's the one from Two – goes flying backwards with some unseen force.

She takes a half-step back. She's never seen any technology quite like that, not even used by the Peacekeepers. The questions keep piling up on top of the answers.

"_Cato!_" someone shouts – Clove, if Katniss had to guess – comes racing out from the tree line. Cato is coughing and sputtering on the ground, out of breath, and Clove grabs the sword from him. "Don't come near him!"

"Easy, easy!" says the one with the chin, inserting himself between Draco and Clove. "We're not going to hurt you! Tell us what's—"

Clove doesn't give him the chance to answer. She lunges forward, sword high and swinging low, and the dark-haired one launches forward with a harsh, "_Doctor, look out!_"

He catches the blade with a device of his own – similar to Draco's – and even though Katniss could swear it was made of wood, Clove's blade sparks as though it's hitting metal and she goes stumbling backwards.

"_Easy!_" says the dark-haired man, more loudly and more severely. "We are not going to hurt you!"

"Unless you give us a reason to," Draco adds.

"Stay back!" Clove says. "Who are you? Marvel! Glimmer!"

"My name is Harry Potter," says Harry Potter (apparently), "this is the Doctor and Draco Malfoy."

"Are you plants?" she demands. "Is this part of the opening? _Marvel, Glimmer!_"

Marvel and Glimmer, Katniss notices, are not coming. Katniss can't blame them. She has a feeling that whatever alliances were initially made have gone well and truly out the window.

"Plants in what?" Draco asks. "Where are we?"

An arrow abruptly whistles past Harry's ear.

"Shit!"

Someone – Katniss recognizes her as the tribute from Four – managed to pick up a bow and arrows. When she misses, she's quick to nock and draw again.

"_Abesco!_" Draco says, and the girl from Four shouts in sudden surprise and alarm as the metal of her bow suddenly glows red hot; she drops it, and the arrow goes flying uselessly into the sky.

"What is going _on!_" the Doctor says. "Why is everyone trying to _kill each other!_"

This, at least, tells Katniss something: either they are not plants or they have a very convoluted reason to lie. As she tries to weight the possibilities and reasoning – why would they lie, what would gaining the trust of the tributes accomplish, why would the Capitol break the rules of the Hunger Games so severely – the sky suddenly opens up.

"HALT," booms a voice from above, as the sky separates, quite literally, and lets in two sleek, black Capitol ships. "DISARM YOUR SHIP AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED."

Ship – so that blue box is a ship, somehow? Katniss's mind is going nearly as fast as her heart.

"Uh," the Doctor shouts up at the sky, almost comically inaudible next to the roaring of the engines from the Capitol war planes, "there aren't any arms to disarm!"

"Doctor!" Draco says. "You can't just tell that the people who want to kill – _No, we're not going to disarm! You disarm! We'll blow you out of the sky!_"

"And what happens when we physically _can't_ blow them out of the sky?" Harry demands.

"I don't know!" Draco says. "We'll think of something!"

"DISARM YOUR SHIP AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED," the war plane says again. They hover even lower, and the gusts of wind from their propellers begin to hiss through the grass and rustle the trees.

Two large guns emerge from the ship's underbelly.

"Fuck!" Draco says.

"Run-run-_run-run-run!_"

They run, and just in time. Bullets rain from the sky like hail, kicking up large patches of dirt and flora. They scramble away, toward the forest—

—right toward Katniss.

She tries to react – or at least, some part of her means to – but for a split second too long, she is paralyzed by fear, mind drowning in the ever-expanding ocean of questions. Before she knows what's happening, Draco is crashing into her, physically as much as mentally. He is all golden hair and sharp gray eyes, and she is paralyzed. Will he hurt her? Is she going to die?

But he grabs her elbow and pulls. "Run!" he says.

And so Katniss runs, if only because she has no choice.

They go leaping over underbrush, dodging trees and bramble. Far above them, the deafening thrum of the Capitol war planes make the canopy quake and tremble. Sprays of gunfire rain down, and though the cover of the trees makes them tough targets it is no less terrifying to hear.

"I wish I could say _this_ is the first time we've been shot at within three minutes of stepping off the TARDIS!" Draco says as he runs. "_This week!_"

"You act all fussy about being shot at and being vaporized by space slugs," the Doctor shouts back, vaulting over a log, "but I know you secretly like it!"

"Of course I _like_ it," Draco shouts, "but you shouldn't be _encouraging_ it!"

"A cave!" Harry says.

It seems more like a berm at first look, but on the second Katniss can see the narrow opening half-covered with a curtain of ivy. They dive for it as the hail of gunfire struggles to find purchase.

Katniss is safe from the gunfire, but she is under no illusions that she is safe, not yet. Before they can catch their breaths, she has an arm around Draco's neck and is pulling the device he used to disable Cato pressed to his neck.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Harry says. "Take it easy!"

"Nobody panic!" the Doctor says shrilly.

"Everything is fine," Draco says through his teeth, "both of you shut up and let her say what she wants."

Katinss is panting hard. Between the fog of fear and confusion, she notes that he smells like fine cologne, though he's hardly wearing Capitol fashions.

"Who are you?" she demands hoarsely. "Where are you from?"

"Far away," Harry answers tautly. "Let him go; no one is going to hurt you."

Harry starts forward, but Katniss points the weapon out sharply. "Don't get any closer!"

"Be careful with that thing, friend," Draco says. "Muggles can't do anything deliberate, but they can still create pretty volatile magical discharges if they don't know what they're doing."

"Let him go," Harry says, in a voice which is somehow both more sedate and more tense simultaneously. "We're not going to do anything."

"Then disarm," Katniss says. "Do it! I saw – you had one like him!"

"All right!" Harry says. "All right. I'll put my wand down."

He pulls it slowly and deliberately out of his sleeve. Draco can see all those years of auror experience kicking in with every movement. He sets down the wand on the damp, rocky floor of the cave.

"And you," Katniss says to the Doctor.

"I don't, uh—" The Doctor pats himself down, then produces his sonic screwdriver. "It's not really a weapon, but it's all I have on me."

Katniss watches him do so warily. Her shoulders are still heaving, but when they both step back, she releases her grip on Draco.

"There we go," Draco says. "Everything is fine. But you really should put that down."

"Sorry, not going to happen," Katniss says, keeping the weapon – the wand, Harry had called it – clutched tightly in her hand. "Not until I have some answers."

"All right," Draco says patiently. "My name's Draco Malfoy. And you are?"

She frowns. "Katniss," she answers. Then, as an afterthought. "Everdeen. You said you don't know where you are."

"Not even a little," Draco says. "We sort of arrived by accident. What's going on?"

The frown only deepens. "Where do you come from where you've never heard of the Hunger Games?"

"Barcelona," the Doctor answers.

The response is so easy and automatic that Katniss is almost completely sure it's a lie. "Right," she says. "Well, I have bad news, because the goal of the Hunger Games is for everyone to kill each other. You're not safe. No one's safe."

"Merlin," Draco says. "How old are you?"

Katniss straightens. "Sixteen."

"_Sixteen?_ Shouldn't you be in school or something?"

"Yeah," she answers, "and instead I'm here."

Harry opens his mouth to reply, pauses, then shuts it again.

Absurdly, and despite the fact that Katniss very recently had his wand to his neck, Draco smirks. "I can relate," he says.

Katniss would be more curious in any other situation. "How did you get here?" she asks. "I saw you come crashing through the top if the arena dome."

"Yes," the Doctor says, "sorry about that. These two were arguing and it made our ship crash."

"We did not _make_ the TARDIS crash," Harry insists.

"So – what – you're from outside Panem?"

"Apparently," Draco answers. "Why were those people shooting at us?"

"Because you _crashed through the roof of the arena_."

"And that's grounds for shooting us?"

"You really are from outside Panem," Katniss answers. "You really have no idea what the Hunger Games are."

"KATNISS EVERDEEN."

They spin towards the mouth of the cave. Harry is the first to approach, staying carefully tucked behind the curtain of ivy and looking out through it for any sign of danger.

"WE HAVE TRACKED YOUR CHIP SIGNAL AND HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE WITH THE INTRUDERS." It's the same Capitol ships from before. "OUR SENSORS SHOW THAT YOU ARE NEITHER PHYSICALLY NOR CHEMICALLY INCAPACITATED AND CAN ONLY CONCLUDE THAT YOU ARE CONSPIRING WITH THEM. LEAVE NOW OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES."

"And they are?" Harry asks softly.

"The Capitol," she answers, spitting the name like a curse. "I forgot about the stupid tracking chip – we have to get out of here. They'll have ground troops in here any minute now."

"You can go on your own if you like," Draco says, "but it might be better to come with us."

"I can't go with you," Katniss says. "I have the tracking chip. They'll be able to follow me to the ends of the earth with – hey—!"

The Doctor grabs her wrist with one hand and his surrendered device off the floor of the cave with the other. With a pulse of green light at her forearm, Katniss feels a slight tingle where the tracking chip is, then nothing.

"What—?"

"Deactivated it." The Doctor grins cheekily and tosses the device in the air. "Told you it wasn't a weapon. Sonic screwdriver."

Katniss flexes her hand, then looks to the others. "Who _are_ you?" she asks.

"Friends," Draco answers, smiling. "We'll get you out of here safely."

Out? Out of the Hunger Games? The mere idea had never once entered her head as a possibility. Some part of her had been assured from the outset that the only way out was death.

"I…" she begins.

"We have a ship," Harry says. "We should still be able to get to it. We can bust you loose, take you wherever you want to go."

Of course, she knows that one never really leaves the Hunger Games, even the victors. The Hunger Games follow you for the rest of your life the moment your name is drawn from the bowl. She would be on the run for the rest of her life.

But isn't that what she wanted? Some excuse to get out, to get anywhere?

"I'm not going without Prim," she says, breathlessly. "Without Peeta or – or Gale, or—"

"You don't have to," Draco says.

"They'll kill them if they find out I deserted!"

The Doctor twirls his sonic screwdriver around his fingers. "Well," he says, "then we'll just have to be faster than they are, won't we?"

"Shouldn't be hard with a time machine," Draco says, and Katniss's breath curdles in her lungs.

* * *

_They step into the TARDIS, leaving Harry behind, and when the Doctor shuts the door, all that's left is the awkward silence._

_"So," the Doctor says. "That was uncomfortable."_

_"That was Harry Potter," Draco says. "Everything he touches turns to uncomfortable."_

_"You were…" The Doctor pauses, hunts for the right word. "Pretty combative."_

_"Old habits die hard, I guess."_

_Draco flips open the map on the TARDIS screen, making way for even more tense, uneasy silence. The Doctor wets his lips and comes around the console._

_"Are we sure that's all it is?" the Doctor asks. "Not for nothing, Draco, but I've seen you when you're upset. You're sassy and sarcastic, but you're never…"_

_"Cruel?"_

_The Doctor doesn't answer, which must be answer enough, because Draco sighs._

_"I know," he says after a lengthy pause. "Potter just brings out the worst in me. He always has, ever since we were kids. I don't know why."_

_"It's just… bad blood, then?"_

_"I don't know," Draco says. "I never hated him. I still don't hate him. And I don't think he hates me – or at least I hope he doesn't. But whenever I'm around him, I turn into the person I hate."_

_"The person that you aren't," the Doctor says._

_"The person I _was_," Draco counters. "The person I've been running from. Can we change the subject?"_

_"The person who was a Death Eater?"_

_The silence falls again. This time It is so cold and all-eclipsing that it seems to physically freeze Draco in place. He is still, tense._

_"Sorry," the Doctor says, "I probably should have told you that I worked it out. The initial clue was when we landed on that desert planet and you refused to roll up your sleeves."_

_Draco's hand snaps onto his opposite forearm, a gesture that is so quick the Doctor can only assume it is the product of years and years of habit and self-hatred._

_"Yes," Draco answers. "The person who was a Death Eater."_

_"The Wizarding War was a long time ago."_

_"So was the Time War."_

_This time it is the Doctor who is paralyzed._

_"I found a book on the history of Gallifrey in the library," Draco explains. "It was weird, reading a history book written before most of the subjects discussed ever happened. I guess that's Time Lords for you."_

_"That's…" the Doctor begins._

_"What?" Draco asks. "Different?" He sounds more curious than the Doctor would have expected._

_"No," he answers, slowly, "not entirely."_

_"Then what?"_

_The Doctor doesn't know. He wishes he did._

* * *

"Some of them aren't dangerous," Katniss says as they walk. There is no more raining bullets – the Doctor said something about a sonic field, chattered a very long time with words Katniss did not know, and then assured them that the Capitol would be unable to track their life signs – but they were still far from anything like safety. "But some of them are trained killers."

"Trained?" Harry asks.

"Careers," Katniss answers, grim. "Born and bred with the sole goal of participating in the Hunger Games. They consider it an honor."

"Goodness," the Doctor says.

"They win almost every year," Katniss continues. "If any of them got their hands on a weapon, we've got a big problem."

"Perhaps the others have already been evacuated," Draco says.

"I wouldn't count on it. The Capitol didn't get to where they are by surrendering control."

Draco sighs overlong, worries his lower lip with his teeth.

"Wait – no, no, no, no, no!"

They come to the edge of the forest, to the large clearing. The Cornucopia, the weapons, the food, the supplies – and more notably, the TARDIS – are all gone, replaced by a great ring of empty space.

The Doctor tries to run forward; Katniss grabs him by the arm.

"Don't," she says. "There's no cover; you'd be a sitting duck."

"Fuck," Harry says. "They took the TARDIS?"

"They won't be able to get into it," Draco says. "There's no way they have the necessary technology."

"We still need it _back_," Harry says tightly.

"Yes, thank you Captain States-The-Obvious! Any more brilliant insights for us? Perhaps you can remark upon the link between oxygen and remaining conscious!"

"Behave," the Doctor says sharply. "I can't have my boys arguing, not now. Katniss, where would they take the TARDIS?"

"Back into the Capitol, probably," she says. "Does this mean we can't get out?"

"Just the opposite," Draco answers. "Now there's nothing in the world that will keep us in."

Katniss looks between them. "You three are out of your minds."

"This is an arena," the Doctor says, though Katniss is willing to bet that it's for no one's benefit but his own, "so there must be a physical wall somewhere, right?"

"I don't know," Katniss says. "It's not like they tell us."

"Right," the Doctor continues, "so all we need to do is find the physical wall and break through it. We have two wizards and a sonic screwdriver. Should be easy!"

"You can't just say that, Doctor," Draco snaps. "That's like saying 'nothing could possibly go wrong' or 'what's the worst that could happen' – it all but _guarantees_ that something—"

"Draco, behind you!"

If he'd reacted a split second later, he would be bleeding on the underbrush. He spins on a heel just in time to catch a slashing blow from a knife – Katniss recognizes him at once; it's Cato again.

Harry dives forward, teeth and magic flashing, sending a burst of yellow-white energy aimed for Cato's stomach. Cato dodges it deftly, rides out the spin, and attacks again, tossing one large, vicious-looking knife at Harry's head. He catches it with a shield of light and sends it flying off to the side where it embeds itself in a tree.

"Stop it!" the Doctor says futilely. "Stop it, we won't hurt you!"

Cato, clearly, isn't listening. He goes after Draco again, who is more prepared for the attack this time and reacts with more precision. Cato is a deadly foe – Katniss never had any doubt of that – but so are Harry and Draco, apparently, and it isn't long before they're starting to close in on him.

Katniss wrenches the knife from the tree, as she has no intention of going a step further still unarmed, and just as she manages to pull it from the bark, she feels a hand around her neck and a blade pressed into the small of her back.

"Ah—!" The point pushes deeper; she feels hot blood running down her thigh and back and all that is going through her head is _no-no-no-no_—

"Katniss!" Draco cries. "Hold still, I can—!"

She rams her elbow backward. Cato cries out in sudden pain and the blade drives deeper. She has no time to acknowledge the pain, however; she has to grab him by one arm and throw him forward over her back, sending him sprawling onto the floor. She slams a boot down over his throat and something crunches.

"Katniss!"

"My side—"

Draco catches her just before she tips. "You've got spunk, kid," he says. "Don't move."

"Hnggghaaa—!"

"Don't move," he says again, lowering her gently.

"Stay down!" Harry snaps at Cato as he struggles to stand up. A quick burst of light to the chest keeps him right where he is.

"I don't like all this fighting," the Doctor says. "Draco, is she okay?"

"My side—" Katniss says again.

"I see it, kid," Draco says. She can feel his hand over the wound, feel it shift slightly as he grabs for his wand. "Deep breath and count to three. One—"

He doesn't get to three. He jabs his wand against her wound and there's a tremendous and terrible jolt of pain that races through it, and Katniss screams. The pain is so strong that it takes her quite some time to realize when it is gone again.

"Fuck!" she says weakly. "_Fuck_, that hurt!"

"Sorry," Draco answers. "Emergency medical magic is rough."

The Doctor suddenly begins patting himself down.

"I'm guessing this is one of the careers you talked about, Katniss," Harry says. He has a foot on Cato's shoulder and his wand pointed at his face.

Katniss nods weakly.

"Something's coming," the Doctor says suddenly.

Katniss looks up. His sonic screwdriver is lying flat on his palm, lit up and buzzing in a strange and discordant way.

"What is?" Draco asks.

"Something _asynthed_," the Doctor says. "My sonic screwdriver is picking up on the released energy. And I'll tell you something else…"

He looks up a the sky through the canopy.

"I don't hear any more war planes, do you?"

Harry looks up, frowns. "So they're not trying to kill us anymore?"

In the distance is the sound of deep baying. Katniss sits up a little straighter.

"Mutts," she says.

"Mutts?" Draco echoes.

"Mutations," Katniss continues, scrabbling to her feet. There are parts of her body that are still aching, but she can at least stand. "Capitol designed."

"Great," Harry says, "so they're still trying to kill us, they're just letting something else do the work."

There comes the sound of more baying, from more directions. Katniss can detect dozens of sources from all around them.

"They're close," Draco says.

"We need to get to the edge of the arena now," the Doctor says.

Cato is unconscious on the ground.

"He'll die," she says. "He'll die if we leave him."

The baying gets louder. "We'll all die if we stay!" Harry says.

"We can't leave him," she says. "And Peeta – we need to find Peeta – before the mutts get out, we have to—"

"Kid, you can't make yourself responsible for _everyone_," Draco says. "You're fighting for your life!"

There comes the sound of heavy footsteps on underbrush, and in the distance there is a shadow loping through the forest toward them. It has the gait of a wolf and the bulk of a bear, and it is fast – far faster than it should be.

"_Run!_" the Doctor says, and they run.

* * *

_"I don't get it," Crabbe sighs. "I'll never get it."_

_"You'll get it," Draco says patiently, "you just have to teach yourself to think about the problem differently."_

_"I'm rubbish at potions."_

_"Everyone's rubbish at potions," Draco says. "At least at first."_

_"_You_ weren't."_

_Draco grins. "I had Professor Snape as a tutor," he says. "Doesn't count."_

_"Can we take a break?" Goyle interjects suddenly. "I'm hungry."_

_"Let's just finish this set of problems," Draco says. "I bet the whole semester will go easier if it clicks for Vince."_

_Crabbe shakes his head vigorously. "I'm hungry, too," he says, "and all this math makes me feel stupid."_

_Draco's face falls in sympathy. "You're not stupid."_

_"Yes, I am."_

_"You're not, though! You're brilliant at magical creatures."_

_Crabbe mumbles something about how it's barely even a subject. Draco really does want to fight him on this – he's known Crabbe for years, and he _knows_ he's not stupid – but Goyle is already standing up and gathering this things._

_"It's okay, Draco," Crabbe says, smiling weakly. "Stupid's not the worst thing to be."_

_Draco is about to respond, when there's suddenly a bark of shrill laughter from the left. Draco frowns, somehow knowing who it is before he even turns around and sees—_

_Yes, there they are, the Golden Trio; one with her nose in a book, one with his eyes on Crabbe, and one with his stupid brilliant black head in the clouds._

_"Stupid's not the worst thing to be," Weasley says, "but it is when it's the only thing!"_

_Weasley is obnoxious and Draco does not like him. He's half-tempted to just leave without comment, until he looks down from the ceiling and locks eyes with Draco._

_Draco feels that familiar rush of something – hatred, he supposes – at the mere sight of him. Looking at Potter floods him with it every time – a sensation so strong that it has a physical, tangible effect. It makes his hands clammy and his skin crawl. It makes his vision tinge with red. When Harry Potter is in the room, he always goes for the jugular._

_"Shut your mouth, Weasley," Draco snaps at once. "Stupid is a thousand times better than being an impoverished ginger tramp."_

_He's well and truly gotten their attention now, and now he can't stop._

_"Or an obnoxious do-gooder hero," he continues. "Or a filthy Mudblood."_

_He grabs his books off the table and leaves before they can come up with a response._

_The distance removes the electricity in his skin. He feels frayed and upset and confused. He's not sure what came over him. He never really is. At some point, he stopped wondering._

_"Why are you always so mean to them, Draco?" Crabbe asks, gently, as they leave the library and round the hall to the stairs leading into the lower level. "I've never seen you so mean to anyone."_

_Draco doesn't have an answer, though he wishes he did. It's a question that's nagged at him ever since first year – why does the nastiness only come out around Harry Potter?_

* * *

Though Harry could make a very sound argument about why running for one's life is an entirely unpleasant experience, every time it's happened with the Doctor, despite what he might say afterwards, he's enjoyed the hell out of himself.

The mutations – mutts, as Katniss had called them – are hot on their trail for what must be over a kilometer. The Doctor, who seems to be following some signal from his sonic screwdriver, keeps shouting encouraging things like "this way!" and "nearly there now!" and "do your best not to look back!"

"So – does this – does this just _happen?_" Draco asks Katniss as they run, and Harry finds it privately impressive that he's in good enough shape to strike up any sort of conversation while they're running for their life. "They just – they _throw_ kids into an arena and just – just let them fight to the death?"

"Don't sound too surprised," Katniss answers, doing a marginally better job of running and maintaining the conversation. "No better way to keep people in line."

"That's not _better_," Draco says, "it's just more _effective!_ That's like saying amputation is a better way to prevent paper cuts!"

Katniss is about to reply when someone abruptly crashes into her – quite literally. They both collapse onto the floor, and a split second after they scramble away from each other on pure, nervous instinct—

"Peeta!"

"Katniss – oh, my God, Katniss!"

The boy is blonde and strong-looking and about Katniss's age. Katniss hugs him so suddenly and so tightly that he looks genuinely surprised.

"You're alive!" she says. "God, I can't believe you made it—!"

"There are mutts _everywhere!_" he says. "There are at least ten behind me – I'm not sure if I lost them—"

"You didn't lose them!" Draco says.

Peeta rolls, stumbles to a stand.

Harry can see them, at least six in number, moving slow and ferociously through the tall grass, backs rolling with each step. They are monstrous, and despite having not inconsiderable experience with many a ferocious magical beast, Harry's never seen anything quite like them.

He is rolling his wand in his hand and is considering what spell is best used for computer generated biology like this when Katniss suddenly lunges in front of Peeta, brandishing the knife she stole from Cato, angry and electric.

"I'll gut them before they come near you," she snarls, and Harry can't help but find the loyalty laudable, even in their current situation.

"Not that I don't applaud the sentiment, kid," Draco says, "but I think we're slightly outnumbered."

Harry looks around – Malfoy is right. The five that followed Peeta are just a small fraction of the mutts now circling them. The mere idea of estimating how many they are feels like self-inflicted torture, but there must be at _least_ fifty, all of them closing in.

"Doctor," Harry says, voice low, "please tell me we're near the wall."

"We're never near the wall!" the Doctor says, exasperated. "We've been following my sonic's signal for over a kilometer now, and the distance never gets shorter or farther!" Harry can hear him fussing with his screwdriver frantically; the buzzing rises and lowers in pitch rapidly as he searches for whatever signal might get them out of here.

Harry carefully steps in front of Katniss; Draco advances with him, covering the other side.

"Okay," Harry says to Malfoy, "while the Doctor works on that, we should probably take care of this."

"Agreed, for once," Draco answers.

"I have an idea of how to take care of them all at once," Harry says, "but it might be slightly insane and it also might not work."

"Well, it's better than nothing."

"Wait, that's it!" the Doctor says behind them. "This is computer generated biology – they can change the terrain at will!"

"I think we should combine our magical energy," Harry says, "and cast a powerful, doming incineration spell."

"You're right, that's insane."

"So the wall hasn't been getting further or closer because we've been running on a treadmill – which means he wall _should_ be right where the sonic says it is, twenty meters away!"

"Doesn't a combined magical output work best when people like each other?" Malfoy says through his teeth. The mutts are getting closer.

"Yes, it does."

"And we're just going to try it anyway despite that not insignificant roadblock."

"You've got a better idea?"

"But the walls must be at least a meter thick – I could find the structural resonance to bring it down, but that could take hours! We'd need a blast of energy strong enough to level a ten-story building—!"

"Be it on your head, then, Potter!"

Draco grabs Harry's hand, the soft and warm and smooth hand that only comes from the life of an aristocrat. Harry grips it tightly and feels the cold, restless currents of Malfoy's magic roiling alongside his own.

The first mutt makes a flying leap toward them. "_Incendio!_" Harry cries, and the cataclysm that follows is more brighter and more powerful than anything Harry has ever experienced before.

* * *

_Harry has and always has had colorful dreams. He is sure that if he cared to work it out, there could be some meaning found in all of them._

_When he is fourteen, his body and brain go through all the physiological changes the sanitized videos on puberty warned him about. He grows taller, his voice drops, his shoulders broaden – and his dreams change._

_His first sex dream is about Cho Chang, though to be honest the dream is so fuzzy and indistinct that he couldn't recall the details with any sort of clarity, which he thinks is a bit of a shame since he has a general idea of it as being nice._

_His second sex dream is about some faceless person with soft hand and a warm mouth._

_His third sex dream is about Draco Malfoy._

_And yes, he is alarmed at first, but those sanitized videos on puberty didn't leave him _completely_ unprepared. He knows that reading too much into it would be a futile endeavor. After all, it's just one dream._

_The trouble is that his fourth, sixth, and seventh sex dreams are also about Draco Malfoy, about the the soft curve of his rosy lips around his cock, about imagined lines of his torso, about milky skin and long legs straddling his waist. Harry always remembers them with perfect, brutal clarity. He remembers the wet heat of him, the gasping, the fingertips on his chest, the whispers like warm honey._

_Perhaps even more alarming is that in between dreams of fucking Draco Malfoy, he dreams of fighting him._

_Perhaps there's something Freudian in it – Harry doesn't know – but when he dreams of Draco Malfoy at all – and he doesn't _always_ dream of Draco Malfoy – it is a tossup as to whether they are fighting or fucking. The fights are nearly as brutal and visceral as the fucking. Slung spells, swearing, spraying blood and snapping bone. The fucking is carnal and ferocious, full of speed and friction and the sharp pain of fingertips bruising skin._

_In dreams, as in reality, nothing about Harry Potter's relationship with Draco Malfoy is ever simple. And though he never tells anyone about the dreams – and though he certainly never acts on them – he always wonders. He wonders why Draco Malfoy, why is it always him, only him, for everything brutal and simple and feral in Harry's life?_

* * *

The ringing in his ears settles. They are standing in the middle of a blackened crater. What is left of the arena is splintered, sparking, reduced to chunks of metal and ash.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Peeta asks, which is a fair question.

Harry is still holding Draco's hand. When he realizes it, he quickly pulls away.

"That was…" The Doctor clears his throat. "Well, I suppose that solves our getting-through-the-wall problem."

Harry looks around. Outside the arena, it is a strange desert wasteland. Yellow sand with bramble sticking up through the dunes, a hot wind, a bright sun.

"Where are we?" Harry asks, but before anyone can answer, there is the all-too-familiar sound of helicopters overhead.

"Shit," Draco says. "Shit!"

"The Capitol war ships," Katniss says, "they're back!"

"Let me handle this," the Doctor says.

"They should be blasting us to hell right now," Peeta says. "Why aren't they shooting us?"

"Because now they fear us," the Doctor answers.

Sure enough, the war ships descend slowly from the air. The wind from their propellers kicks up the sand in a ferocious vortex, and it only starts to settle when the nearest plane lands evenly on a nearby dune. A hatch opens promptly, and a fleet of armed soldiers come marching out.

"Good morning!" the Doctor says. "How's your day been so far?"

The lines of soldiers are flanking one man in particular – a soldier by the look of him, in practical but high-quality combat leathers – who has a look would slay them where they stand if they could.

"Name and affiliation," he growls.

"The Doctor," says the Doctor, "and my own."

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't gun you down now!"

"Because you are terrified of the consequences," the Doctor says.

"Not _that_ terrified," he says. "I was inches from disobeying orders and shooting you dead from the air – but unfortunately, President Snow thinks you are of more use alive."

"President Snow—?" the Doctor begins.

There is suddenly, brutally, an incredible pain in Harry's side that radiates to every part of him. It sends him collapsing onto his knees and crying in agony—

—and it stops just as abruptly as it ends.

"_I will kill you if you touch him!_" he hears Draco say. "Get away from him – don't touch me!"

Blasts of magic and phase fire – Harry's head is still swimming with the echoes of pain, he tries to stand up, but his muscles feel stiff and immobile, and he wonders if he is paralyzed—

"By order of President Snow, I place you under arrest!" the soldier barks. "You are to all be taken for interrogation for your terrorist ties!"


	6. Occam's Sledgehammer

When Harry wakes up, he is alone.

It takes a while for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. For several disorienting seconds, all he knows is that it is cold and that he is lying on smooth cement.

He lifts a hand to rub at a sore muscle on his back only to find that he's bound by both wrists to the wall. He frowns and hunts, still mostly blind, for the chains. He doesn't find chains, per se, only a thin and smooth tether made from what feels like tough, flexible resin. They're secured to tight manacles around his wrists.

"Draco?" he says into the darkness. "Doctor?"

No answer.

Either they are unconscious or not in the room – and as his vision settles to his dark surroundings, he begins to think it is the latter. The room he is in is unquestionably a prison cell – cramped and dark and plain, with no source of light, natural or otherwise. Harry knows these tactics. He's used these tactics as an auror.

The door opens abruptly and light comes screaming in. Harry squints against the onslaught, and for a while all he can see is a dark figure silhouetted against the yellow light outside his prison cell.

"No identification," the figure opens, and Harry can only identify the voice as a woman's, "no tracker chip, no recognized genetic code, and somehow you manage to come crashing through the dome of the arena during the opening minute of the Hunger Games."

There follows a loud scraping sound – metal on cement. As Harry's eyes once again adjust to the lighting, he can make out details. A woman, tall and spare and severe, her hair in a tight bun at the back of her head, wearing a pressed military uniform. She is dragging a metal chair into the room and setting it up on the opposite wall. She sits down and regards him as Harry takes in the subtleties of her face – the straight nose, the fierce eyes, the hard jaw.

"Your stunt has officially declared you an enemy of Panem," she says, almost idly, folding one leg over the other. "I am well within my rights to use any means necessary to extract information out of you. But I thought I'd give you a chance to explain yourself. Would you like some water?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Harry answers. His voice is quite rough.

"Bring him some water," she says to someone outside the door that Harry can only see in silhouette.

Despite the situation, he smirks.

"Frame," Harry says.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're maintaining frame," Harry continues. "The difference in elevation – me on the floor, you on the chair. It creates the suggestion of power and authority. You offered me water, I turned it down, you have it brought anyway. You invalidated my choice, maintaining the power dynamic. Everything you've done since walking into the room has been carefully planned to give you all the power in this conversation."

She doesn't answer immediately. Harry can see her twirling a stylus around her fingers. "I do have the power," she says after a moment.

Another guard else enters. They put a large cup of water down at Harry's feet and leave promptly.

"Not psychologically," Harry says. "And that's all that matters in an interrogation."

He takes a very long pull of the water to drive his point home.

"I am more than capable of playing by your rules and still winning."

She leans back in her chair. "Your friends have already given up most of the information."

"No, they haven't."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because I'm smarter than you and Draco Malfoy is smarter than me," Harry answers. "And also because oppressive dictatorships usually don't bother crossing T's and dotting I's. Why even talk to me if you have two stories that line up? It would be wasting time that could be used executing dissidents."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Got a lot of experience with oppressive dictatorships, do you?"

Harry laughs. "You think this is my first rodeo? Voldemort was way scarier than you, and I killed him."

She releases a long breath through her nose, slips the stylus away into the side of her data pad. "Well, then," she says, rising. "I suppose we'll skip right to the torture."

Harry laughs hoarsely. "Bring it on, you Orwellian motherfucker."

* * *

"_How did you get the airspace access codes?_"

Draco's pretty sure at least one of his ribs is broken. Fortunately, he's just distracted enough to keep the pain at bay.

"_Answer me!_"

Another crack to his side. He tumbles to the left; he'd fall if the manacles weren't holding him up. He sags and shudders, but his eyes remain firmly on the tiny metal wand strapped to his tormentor's belt.

"Perhaps you don't understand the situation," he says, looming down, approaching slowly, and in his head Draco is chanting _yes, yes, yes, three steps more, three steps more_, "President Snow has not only _cleared_ me to torture you, he's _encouraging it_. I have legal sway to—"

He comes within range and it's all she wrote; Draco jerks one leg up and the knee connects so solidly with the guard's crotch that he feels his kneecap hit bone.

The sound he makes is exactly as gratifying as Draco imagined it would be. The guard collapses on his side, and for good measure, Draco grabs him by the hair and cracks his head once, solidly, into the floor to shut him up.

He moves quickly; he cannot afford to waste time. He pulls the small metal wand from his belt and flips it on. It creates a short, hot beam of light that slices easily through the shackle attaching him to the wall.

If he had more time, he'd swap out all his clothes with the guard's. As it stands, he only has enough time to throw on his jacket and hat before pushing his way out the door. He walks with a purpose and precision that deflects suspicion and exacerbates the pain in his – yes, that is definitely broken – rib.

He hears a woman screaming from behind a stone wall and makes a beeline for it. A door several meters away stands ajar, and when he throws it open, the laser knife in hand—

A guard goes careening past him into a wall. He looks up in surprise.

Katniss is still bound to the wall, but standing, eyes burning.

"Hey," she says shortly.

"Hi, kid," he answers. "I suppose it would be silly to point out that I'm your rescue party. You've clearly got things under control."

"You can cut my bonds, if it makes you feel useful," she says.

Draco grins. "I knew I liked you," he says, moving forward to do just that. Katniss makes quick work of the hard, resin shackles and rubs hard at her wrists.

"We need to find Peeta," she says.

"And Potter, and the Doctor," he says. "I think they all might be around here, if they put you and me so close together. Put on her hat and jacket; we shouldn't go out there looking too obvious."

She is already crouching down beside the guard's unconscious form and stripping her. "I feel like I should beat some answers out of you before I go any further with this," she says.

"You're well within your rights," Draco says. "And if we weren't in the process of escaping, I'd give you the whole rigmarole. Do you text, by the way?"

"Do I what?"

"Never mind. I'll set you up with a phone before the end."

Katniss frowns at him in confusion. Draco only smiles. As soon as she's shrugged on the jacket and tucked her hair up into the hat, he sets out down the hallway.

* * *

"How are you holding up?" she asks Harry, who, in answer, spits blood and possibly a tooth at her. "Well there's no need to be rude."

"Keep it up," Harry says. "I can go all night."

"Oh," says a voice from behind, "am I interrupting?"

Harry looks up. He supposes he should be happy to see him, but instead he's just sort of pissed off. Perhaps it's residual, from the torture.

"Malfoy," he says.

"_Who_—?" begins Harry's interrogator, but Katniss lunges out from behind him and lands a drop kick to the side of her head.

"We're your rescue party," Draco says. "She rough you up?"

Harry spits out another mouthful of blood, this time onto the floor. "Nothing I can't handle."

"Now is not the time to be macho," Draco says severely, falling to his side and neatly slicing through the tethers anchoring him to the wall. "Let me see."

Draco puts a hand on the side of Harry's face. His touch is absolutely electric, though perhaps that's damaged nerves. He feels Malfoy's finger pull gently at his jaw to open his mouth.

"I need to get to my wand," Draco says, "patch you up. Blood loss certainly won't make you any smarter."

"Insufferable git," Harry says weakly. "When did it start being your job to save the day?"

"Jealous, Potter? One would have thought you'd had more than enough chance."

"Unbearable as the sexual tension between you two is," Katniss interjects, "we need to get Peeta and your bowtie-wearing friend and get out of here before anyone notices."

"Agreed," Draco says, rising. "Not about the sexual tension thing, though. The other thing. If we can get to our wands, we'll be in much better shape to get out of here."

"I think I saw a storage area out in the main lobby."

"You stole my wand form my own sleeve not that long ago," Draco says. "Think you could recognize it if you saw it? You'll be sneaker than Potter or I; you're smaller."

She pauses, then nods. "I think I can," she says. "You'll get Peeta out?"

"We'll get your boyfriend, kid."

"He's not my boyfriend," she says at once.

"And I don't have sexual tension with Potter," Draco says.

Katniss pauses. "Touché," she says. "I'll go now."

"Be careful, kid," Draco says as Katniss tugs her hat down over her eyes and pushes out into the hallway.

Harry eyes Malfoy. "We don't have sexual tension," he says.

"Don't we?"

Harry looks at Malfoy, and Malfoy looks back at him, and – well, fuck.

Harry suddenly and brutally reconsiders everything he thought he felt about Malfoy. Old, long-buried memories of dreams resurface in his mind, dreams of hot breath and cornsilk hair, of feather-light and gossamer-soft fingertips and hot, wet mouths.

Somehow, the realization that their bickering has been less fighting and more foreplay makes Harry even more inexplicably angry. He wishes he had time to address it – or, perhaps, he likes to think he would wish for such things.

"We should go," Draco says.

"Right," Harry answers, and they go.

* * *

_Draco is lying down on his cot in the back room of the TARDIS. He is not asleep; his breath is not slow enough for that. He is curled tightly, shoulders shaking – not crying, exactly, though the Doctor knows that tears aren't always necessary, not even for the most profound sort of pain._

_It has been a bad day._

_There have been far more good days than bad days, if only because Draco's been traveling with him for so long now, but the bad days always feel much longer._

_The Doctor stands in the doorway, hands wringing, with the weight of everything he wants to say holding him down. He wants to tell Draco about the keen and bitter empathy he feels for his situation, speak on everything he's learned about self-hatred and justice in a chaotic universe._

_He did it once before, with Rose, all those years ago. But it was different then, the Doctor knows. He was a different man back then – and besides, Rose never really understood, though she would have denied it. She couldn't really comprehend the depth of his grief and anger._

_Draco, in his own scale, can._

_And that, the Doctor knows, is what makes it so terrifying. He would be confronting far more than just Draco's past sins._

_So instead of talking, instead of offering what few words of comfort he has, he leaves, eyes forward, face set, hoping that when he wakes up, it will be with some measure of comfort and a smile that he doesn't have to force._

* * *

In what turns out to be an aggravatingly impressive display of physical prowess, Draco Malfoy manages to fight his way through a dangerous underground compound run by an oppressive dictatorship, knock out several armed and presumably trained guards – and all while only breaking enough of a sweat to make him look tousled and irresistible.

Harry wishes he could go back to when he was convinced this roiling in his stomach was anger and not arousal. It would make everything much easier to deal with.

"Peeta," Draco says when he knocks out one last guard. "There you are. Your girlfriend is worried about you."

Peeta looks up. "She's not my—"

"Whatever you say, sport." Draco crouches down and slices through the tethers. "You can stand?"

"Yeah," he says. "We need to get out of here. No way President Snow isn't breathing down the neck of everyone here waiting for information."

"Who's President Snow?" Harry asks. "I remember that name."

"He's – he's President Snow," Peeta answers, as though the answer is somehow self-evident. "The elected leader of Panem? You know, ostensibly. Where is it you guys said you were from?"

"So he's a dictator," Draco says.

"I – we don't really—"

"Right," Draco says, "he's a dictator. Okay. We can handle dictators."

"We can?" Peeta asks.

"We can?" Harry echoes.

"Dictators are easy. The problem with having all the power vested in one person is that all the power is vested in one person. Take him out and the rest will come crashing down around him, one way or another."

"Take him out?" Peeta repeats, astonished.

"Malfoy!"

Harry grabs his arm, wrenches him around. Draco snarls and yanks his arm out of Harry's grasp. It's at that moment that Harry notices a subtle but pervasive anger in the tense lines of his body.

"You're talking about killing him?" Harry asks.

"You sound surprised."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm all for toppling a dictatorship, but maybe—"

"Maybe what?" Draco asks. "Two wrongs don't make a right? That equation's a bit unbalanced, don't you think? Would you care to explain to the hundreds of dead children that two wrongs don't make a right? How do their lives stack up in this grand morality equation?"

Harry is so startled by the fierceness in his voice that he is silent for a moment. "That's not what I'm saying," he says after a pause.

"No, you're saying that killing is wrong," Draco says. "And it is. I just didn't expect to hear it from you."

Harry knows what he's talking about, of course. Memories of red eyes and white skin flash in his mind's eye, but the wounds of the war have long since healed for him. Harry suddenly finds himself wondering if they have for Malfoy.

"If you don't want a part in it, then just stay out of my way," Malfoy growls. "I'm not letting another mass-murdering psychopath get away with anything."

Malfoy leaves, and Harry is left standing in the cell, blood pumping, head spinning, drunk off Malfoy's reckless anger and vicious morality.

"If you can help us do that," Peeta says softly to Harry, "take it from me – Panem will be grateful."

Harry looks across at Peeta. There's a lot he could say, but all he manages is, "We should catch up with him." For now, it's all that matters.

Peeta nods, and they exit the cell.

Just in time, as it happens – the moment they make it into the lobby again, it's to the sounds of battle, gunfire and singing metal. Harry at once pulls Peeta back around the corner, pressing him into the wall as he peers around the corner.

"Draco!" It's Katniss. She's on the far side of the room and throwing Draco his wand. Natural mastic sends it tumbling directly into his palm, and Draco spins on a heel to disarm the nearest guard. He is precise and effortless and lethal.

"Katniss," Peeta breathes.

"Don't get involved," Harry says. "Stay here."

"Like hell I'm staying here!"

"It's dangerous out there," Harry hisses at him.

"That's why I have to go! That's why _you're_ going!"

Harry has neither the time nor the inclination to come up with a reason why he's wrong. "Stay by the desks and take cover if you have to," he says, then he lunges out into the fray. "Katniss!"

She takes out a guard with a shot to the shoulder from a stolen gun, then turns in time to toss Harry his wand. He joins the battle with a stupefication spell to the guard coming up behind Malfoy.

"I had that one!" Malfoy says defensively.

"You're welcome!"

"Look out, kid!" Malfoy fires off a hex that catches one of the guards descending on her in the jaw.

The battle lasts too long. Harry has been an auror long enough to know that in covert situations, all confrontations should be as brief and quiet as possible. Meanwhile, between the four of them they're causing so much racket that, by the time the last guard tumbles forward, the room is flooded with red light and the sound of a low, droning siren.

"We can't leave without the Doctor!" Malfoy says. "Katniss, Peeta – can one of you interface with these computers, find out where he is?"

"I can," Peeta says. He's a bit breathless and sporting a shiner – whether from the fight or the interrogation, Harry isn't sure; he hadn't looked close enough before – but he dives for a desk and pulls up the screen. "Staying in the Capitol even for a few days really brings you up to speed on technology."

Katniss watches in silence. She is panting, trembling slightly, and glancing from corner to corner through the floodlight as though expecting the worst. "We don't have much time," she says.

"There's my file," Peeta says, "and there are links – hang on, I think I can…"

"No rush or anything, Peeta," Katniss says, "but there are almost certainly more guards coming."

"There!" he says. "'Subject name unknown, subject alias Doctor, room Basement 12-8!' They must have put him in a special room."

"Right," Harry says. "I'll go."

"Like fuck you will," Draco says.

"Malfoy," he answers severely, "I have to go."

"Not alone!"

"Someone needs to find the TARDIS, and we can't leave Peeta and Katniss alone," he says. "I'll go find the Doctor; you three stay here and get to the TARDIS. You'll be safe there. Draco, call the Doctor's mobile when you find it."

"You have the Doctor's mobile?"

"It was in storage with your wands," Katniss says. "I really don't think we can stay here. I think I hear footsteps."

"I'm not staying," Harry says. "Draco, good luck."

"Potter."

"We'll reconvene as soon as—"

"_Potter_."

There's a hand on his chest, hot and firm and electric. It fists in the front of his shirt and Draco's gray eyes burn into him.

"You cannot comprehend how thoroughly you will regret it if you do something stupid."

Harry furrows his brow. There is something pulsing between them, almost physical, like static. "You'll kill me yourself if I have the audacity to die?"

"Yes," Draco answers harshly. "I will bring you back from the dead just so I can beat you to death a second time."

And Harry _hates_ him at that moment, almost as fiercely and undeniably as he wants to push him up against a wall and kiss him until neither of them can remember their names. Harry finds himself yearning for the days before the self-awareness of his feelings toward Draco Malfoy.

"They're coming!" Katniss says.

"Go," Draco says, pulling his wand out of his sleeve.

Harry goes, but the electricity lingers just beneath the surface of his skin.

* * *

"_What the hell is wrong with you?_"

"Sorry," the Doctor says. He is not sure why he's apologizing to the woman attempting – however unsuccessfully – to torture him. "I don't experience pain in quite the same ways as you. Psychotropics and neural stimulants don't do much."

She throws down the vial. It shatters loudly on the floor, but the Doctor doesn't flinch.

"Look," he continues, "if it makes you feel better, you'd be doing a very good job if it was anyone else."

She bares her teeth at him. "President Snow wants answers out of you," she growls. "And if you don't respond to psychotropics, then we'll have to go low-tech."

She tugs a small, pill bottle-sized metal cylinder from her pocket, which telescopes out into a vicious, nasty looking weighted baton.

"Right," the Doctor says, "that would be much more effective."

"Good," she growls, stalking forward.

"Just one question, if you don't mind, before you get started."

She doesn't seem to be listening. She raises the baton over her head.

"Have you met my friend?"

She doesn't get the chance to answer, of course – she doesn't even get the chance to process the question. Before the blow falls, she is jerking and spasming as though hit by a taser, and she collapses into a heap at the Doctor's bound feet.

"Harry!" the Doctor says. "Lovely to see you. Impeccable timing."

Harry takes a last glance out of the hallway, as though to be sure he isn't being followed. "Hey," he says. "We need to go."

"Couldn't agree more," the Doctor says. Harry heads over and severs the bonds holding him – one for each limb, which leads Harry to suspect they had special plans for him – with a few fast, precise spells. "Is Draco all right?"

"When I last saw him," Harry says. "I left him with Katniss and Peeta. They're looking for the TARDIS."

"Good! So the gang's all here." The Doctor takes his sonic screwdriver and mobile phone when Harry offers them.

"You should know, Doctor," Harry says, "I think Malfoy's out for blood on this President Snow fellow."

"Yes," the Doctor answers contemplatively, "that doesn't surprise me."

It isn't the answer Harry had been expecting, clearly. "It doesn't?"

"Draco gets that way around oppressive dictatorships and mass-murdering cults," the Doctor says. "He's got a bit of a history."

Several weeks' worth of travel and interaction is suddenly put into perfect perspective, reflected on every line of Harry's face. "That's – he's trying – he wants to _make up_ for being a Death Eater?"

The Doctor frowns. "Not how I would have put it, and certainly not the words I'd use around him," he says. "But yes."

Harry's brow knits. His fingers clench and unclench around his wand. Before the Doctor can suggest that they leave, the same mobile phone he'd just put away goes off in his pocket to the tune of _We Built This City_.

"That'll be Draco," he says, pulling it out a second time. "Hello, Draco! Are your ears burning?"

"_We found the TARDIS but the guards are following us there!_" he shouts. "_They'll have it surrounded by the time we get inside!_"

"Right," the Doctor says, and his mind is already working through the problem, "that is a predicament."

"Doctor?" Harry asks, frowning.

"_Katniss, Peeta, go! Go, go, go! I'll hold them off!_"

"Draco," the Doctor says, "how do you feel about flying the TARDIS?"

"Flying the TARDIS?!" In the background, the Doctor can hear spells being slung. "Can I do that?"

"Sure," he answers, "why not? You have hands and can follow directions."

"I don't know, I thought it was a Time Lord thing! You always talk about the psychic interface – _fuck!_"

"Language," the Doctor says. "You can do it. I'll walk you through the whole thing. It's not as complicated as I make it look. Or at least it doesn't have to be."

"I'm holding you to that, Doctor! _In, in, in!_"

"Are they in the TARDIS?" the Doctor asks.

"_How the fuck is this possible?_" Peeta demands loudly in the background.

It answers the Doctor's question. "Okay, good," he says. "The TARDIS has a function that automatically locks onto my temporal signature. All you need to do is turn on the primary engines and set the process to start."

The Doctor can hear labored breathing, footsteps on metal. Harry peers out through the door, swears loudly, and slams the door.

"There are more coming," he says.

"Hold them off as long as you can," the Doctor tells him. "Draco will come pick us up soon. Draco, are you ready? Not to rush you but we're a bit pressed for time."

"There's a first aid kit under the console," Draco says, though the Doctor thinks not to him. "Okay. Okay, I'm ready. Where do I start?"

"The panel closest to the chair," the Doctor answers. "Large metal crank. It should be down; push it up."

Through the tinny speaker, the Doctor hears the telltale grind, then clank, then the slow and steady oscillation of the engines.

"Small red button to the right. Hit it two times."

The Doctor waits apprehensively. He watches Harry cast a strong shielding spell over the door. It promptly sparks and buckles when two guards ram into the door..

"A prompt will come up on the screen to your right," he continues. "Hit yes."

A pause. "Doctor, this prompt is in Gallifreyan!"

"Oh," he says. "Is it? Then, uh, hit the one on the left."

"The left?"

"No, the right!"

"Doctor!"

"It is almost definitely the one on the right!"

"What happens if it's the one on the left?"

"I don't know! Probably nothing!"

"Can't keep this up forever, Doctor!" Harry says as there's another great crackle of magic. The Doctor an see him focusing all his energy on keeping that wall of magic intact.

"I'm hitting the one on the right!" Draco says, and a split second later, from deep under their feet, there is a tremendous, rumbling roar. The entire building – even buried deep into the earth as it is – shudders.

"I think it may have been the one on the left after all," the Doctor says.

"What was _that?_" Harry demands.

"_What was that?_" Draco echoes.

"It's – uh – okay, everything is fine."

_Boom!_ The entire room rumbles again, with more volume and more force than before. It is almost as though the living rock around them is threatening to split open.

"Everything is fine!" the Doctor says again. "All it means is that the TARDIS is in manual transport mode instead of the materialization mode!"

_Boom!_ Just as loud as the first time, but somehow closer.

"What does that mean?" Harry asks. "What's happening to this facility?"

"It means – it means get down! _Get down!_"

The Doctor grabs Harry by both shoulders and they both go tumbling onto the ground shortly before the great slab of cement breaks and crumbles with a deafening sound. It takes out the wall to the hallway and much of the roof before the TARDIS comes crashing through the debris, spins, and lands – incredibly – upright in the corner.

"I think we should focus on the fact that the TARDIS still managed to get here," the Doctor says.

The door swings open. Peeta is standing backlit by the golden light. "Your box is bigger on the inside!"

"_Get in here before the entire complex collapses!_" Draco shouts from behind.

* * *

"We can't just leave it like this!"

"Draco, while I appreciate your instinct to help—"

"There is a psychopathic dictator out there _forcing children to kill each other!_"

"This is a terrestrial problem, Draco," the Doctor says, with a patience that Harry can only marvel at. "There's no outside interference except for us crashing into the arena. This is the natural timeline of this planet; we can't interfere!"

"Bullshit, we can't interfere!"

"Language!"

"You interfere all the time! You built an entire life around interfering! You can't tell me that you just want to drop them off and then leave them to die! You know that they won't make it far!"

The Doctor sighs and looks across at Katniss and Peeta. They are not involved in this conversation, instead sitting on the steps leading down to the door of the TARDIS. They are nursing their wounds, both doubled over a first aid kit. Peeta is dabbing at a cut on the back of Katniss's shoulder while Katniss looks back at him with uncertain eyes.

"They'll be hunted down," Draco says. "And meanwhile, these – these fucking horrifying games of theirs will keep going, and _more children_ will die. You can't honestly say you don't want to fix this!"

The Doctor sighs. Harry, meanwhile, watches, detached and critical.

"I do," the Doctor says. "I know I can't stay out of this, that's not why I'm hesitating. It has nothing to do with the situation and everything to do with you."

Draco's jaw sets, his shoulders square. Harry can see the tenseness in every line of his body.

"We've been down roads like this before, Draco," he says, softly. "You're constantly chasing these things like they might fix what hurts you."

"This doesn't have anything to do with me," Draco says, and the lie is so transparent that Harry wonders if he even believes himself.

"Do you really think this will help, Draco?"

"This doesn't have anything to do with me!" Draco repeats, louder.

"We'll drop them off home," the Doctor says, "and we'll confront this dictator, but you have to understand that we can't—"

"What?"

It's Katniss. She stands up suddenly, leaving the wound on her shoulder half-tended. "You can't do that. You can't leave us behind."

Draco frowns. "Katniss—"

"We've got more skin in this game than you," she says. "I'm not going anywhere."

Peeta seems blindsided for a moment, but he's quick to stand up with her. "I'm not leaving without Katniss," he says.

"You're sixteen," Draco says.

"You're not even from this world!" she answers, gesturing emphatically to the TARDIS. "Why do you get to do something about it and not me?"

"Because _you're sixteen,_" Draco says again. "A sixteen-year-old has no place in war; trust me, I should know! Letting you fight would be child abuse!"

"I _want_ to fight!"

"Look, kid, I admire your moxie, I do. But what do you really think you're going to get out of this? You think you're going to watch him die and it's going to undo everything he did? It's going to un-break your country?"

Harry should say something, but he does not. For the second time in his life, Harry has a perfect window into the mind of Draco Malfoy, and much like the first time, it is equal parts confusing, enraging, mystifying, and heartbreaking. Harry wants to punch him in the teeth and kiss him until it stops hurting.

"You'll still be left with the pieces!" Draco says. "You'll still be left with a broken family and a tattered community; you'll still have the nightmares. Change will come slowly if at all, and even when it does, it won't take away the sting!"

"Say something to him," the Doctor says. He is right beside Harry, speaking quietly enough to not be heard over the argument.

Harry swallows whatever it is that had lodged itself in his throat and kept him from speaking. "What makes you think he'd listen to me?"

"Because you were there," the Doctor answers. "Because he needs to hear it. Because I can't say it."

Harry frowns.

The Doctor looks guilty for an instant. "I've been trying," he says. "I'm old, Harry. I know I don't look it, but I am. Old and stuck in my ways, my pain. I try to tell him what he needs to hear, and I can't. I just can't."

Harry wets his lips. He draws a breath. He speaks up.

"Let them come," he says, loud enough to be heard over the argument (still going).

All three of them turn to Harry. He stands his ground.

"Like fuck they are," Draco snaps at him. "They're children!"

"Yes, they are," Harry says. "But the world doesn't always go easy on children just because they're children. They were forced into this, Malfoy. If nothing else, they deserve to see it finished."

The argument sputters and dies like an old engine. The Doctor approaches the console; Katniss and Peeta exchange glances and slowly sit back down.

Draco, meanwhile, burns holes through Harry's head with the force of his glare. Harry approaches him, unperturbed.

"That was good advice you were giving them," Harry says to him, "about the pain still being there. It might do you good to take your own advice."

Malfoy bares his teeth at him, but his expression of anger is betrayed by shining eyes. "Fuck you, Potter."

Harry grinds his teeth. "Is it never easy with you?"

"You'd hate me even more if it was."

And the worst part is he's probably right.

* * *

"Where did they go?" Haymitch asks, not for the first time since arriving. "_Where did they go?_"

"We _don't know_," Cinna repeats, also not for the first time.

"You heard them say that all the tributes were accounted for!" Haymitch says, and if he is unusually frantic, he blames it entirely on the fact that he hasn't had a drink in eighteen hours and not at all on the fact that his tributes are missing in action. "So why did we only see twenty-two cruisers? They have tracking chips! Shouldn't they be easy to find?"

"They're working on it, Haymitch," Cinna says. "I'm not any happier than you."

Haymitch starts pacing, and Cinna sighs, sits back, and gives up on the idea of ever calming him down.

"They had to have taken them somewhere," Haymitch growls. "God knows what they're doing to them. And what the hell was that blue box?"

"I don't even know why you keep asking these questions, Haymitch; we don't know! No one here knows!"

"Then why the hell aren't we finding out?"

"We're trying," Cinna says with all the patience left in him. "Planes have been sent out of Thirteen to investigate what they can. We won't know anything until they get back."

"So we just have to sit around? Until they finish torturing Katniss and Peeta?"

"Haymitch," Cinna sighs.

"We should be going in there!" he says. "Doing something – doing _anything!_"

"I agree."

The voice startles them both out of their mutual anger and exasperation. When they turn towards the origin – the doorway leading into the bedroom overlooking the Capitol – they are both sufficiently startled by who is standing there.

"President Coin!"

Cinna is the first to stand, rising clumsily out of his barstool. It takes Haymitch a moment longer.

"Madame President," Haymith says, "what are you doing in the Capitol? It can't be safe for you here."

"It isn't safe for me anywhere, Mr. Abernathy," she answers. "It's not safe for _anyone_. But we're lucky enough to find ourselves in the middle of a military blackout."

"A blackout?" Haymitch repeats, frowning.

"There's been a disaster in the Capitol's primary military base under Lake Excelsior," she says. "Much of it has collapsed and they're in a blind panic."

Cinna and Haymitch exchange bewildered expressions.

"What caused the collapse?" Cinna asks.

"We're not sure," President Coin responds, "but we do know much of the damage is focused around the cell where they _were_ holding Katniss Everdeen."

Haymitch stands up straighter. "Were? She escaped?"

"They both did," she says, "along with three others whose names were not recorded."

"The box," Cinna says.

"We don't know exactly what we're dealing with," President Coins says, "but if we act now, it won't matter. We can overthrow the Captiol, kill President Snow, and take out whatever is destroying all these buildings."

Frowning, Haymitch adds, "and get Katniss and Peeta back."

Quicksilver eyes turn to Haymitch, focusing on him with an unnatural stillness.

"Of course," she says. "Provided that she hasn't had something to do with all this rampant destruction."

Cinna lifts his chin. "Where are we going?"

President Coin smiles, faintly. "Where else?" she answers. "Right to the belly of the beast."

* * *

President Snow stands in the garden that overlooks the lake.

If he did not know what he knows, if no one had told him otherwise, he never would have suspected that it was all crumbling down like so much brittle glass. It certainly does not look like a city under siege, with its tall spires and glimmering silver lights. It looks as flawless as it always does.

But deep under the fair skin of the city, President Snow knows the conflict rages.

He knows, and he is not surprised when the door bursts open.

"Hullo!" says a voice he does not recognize. "Sorry to intrude; we've sort of single-handedly incapacitated your military."

He takes a centering breath and turns on a heel.

"Well, well, well," he says as five figures emerge from the palace. "Katniss Everdeen. And Peeta Mellark. What fascinating tributes you've made."

But they are lagging behind; coming out into the fore is a snarling blonde man who immediately throws out one hand—

President Snow falls before he's even quite sure how. He tumbles to the side and feels the side of his head crack unpleasantly against the stone of the garden path.

For a while his head is ringing. When his vision clears and the world stops shrieking around him—

"Jesus, Malfoy! Take it easy!"

Something – President Snow cannot quite tell what – flips him over and lifts him up off the ground. It's the blonde again, eyes burning molten silver, teeth bared.

"I suppose," President Snow says, "I never should have expected any coup d'état of mine to be anything but bloody and violent."

"Frightened?" the blonde snarls at him.

"Are you asking for my benefit or yours?"

He is quite suddenly thrown into a wall. It knocks the wind out of him and shatters at least a few of his ribs.

"Draco," says someone else, warily.

"The problem," his attacker – Draco, apparently – says, "with _your_ kind of rule – rule by fear – is that fear is so very closely linked to anger, and anger is the best motivator there is."

President Snow coughs, and spatters of blood follow.

"I mean, realistically, how long did you really think you could get away with it?" Draco demands. "Killing children left and right – did you _really_ think you could keep it up _in perpetuum_? Did you really think people would never stop being frightened and start being _angry?_"

"Your proselytizing serves precious little purpose," President Snow says. "Do you think you can talk me out of things I have already done?"

"I don't give a damn what you think!" Draco snaps. "I'm the one who's armed!"

There's a strange clatter of sound and there's a painful, unidentifiable force that feels as though it is squeezing tightly on all his muscles at once. President Snow screams, though he is incapable of the appropriate volume for how painful it is.

"_Malfoy!_"

The pain stops a moment later, leaving only echoes. He lifts his head.

"That's enough," says another, dark-haired and tall. "We need him alive to give the word for the official surrender."

"We need him alive," Draco answers bitterly, "we don't need him _well_."

"Malfoy—"

"Do I really have to remind you of the sort of shit he's _guilty of?_"

It is at that moment that President Snow begins to see the signs of emotional fraying in his assailant – trembling hands, set jaw, wide eyes.

"No," says Katniss Everdeen suddenly, "you don't."

His eyes swivel to her. She approaches him with none of the fire or the fury of his attacker. She is calm, even – withdrawn, almost – and when she approaches him, she neatly grabs a fistful of his hair and cracks his head against the wall.

"I think I speak for everyone in District Twelve and all the children whose deaths you've ordered," she says, "when I say fuck you."

"We don't necessarily need him to surrender," Draco says, voice shaking. "I'm sure his head on a platter would be equally effective in persuading the military to turn coat."

"And who's going to do the cutting, Draco? You?"

His vision starts to clear again, though there is now a deadly throb between his temples. Draco is staring down the dark-haired man. They are staring at one another with something halfway between fury and lust.

"You're not a killer, Malfoy," he says. "You never were!"

"Perhaps that's caused more problems than it ever solved!" Draco snaps, and he turns toward President Snow a second time. There is murder – or at least, something very close to murder – in his eyes.

The best he can hope for at this point is a speedy ending. What does it matter if he gets it from Draco?

"Go on," he says through blood and loose teeth, Katniss's hand still gripping his hair. "Show me the courage of your conviction."

He can see Draco's hand wringing around the handle of his weapon. His nostrils are flared, his eyes set.

"Boys, I think we have more visitors."

Floating down over the lake are two great silver ships. He recognizes the make of them at once, and he smiles deliriously.

"Oh, good," he says, "the rebellion proper is arrived. Good. Perhaps they won't be quite so lengthy."

"Rebellion?" says Peeta.

"Rebellion?" echoes Katniss.

The planes don't land – there isn't enough room for them to land – but the hatches open and armed soldiers drop down three at a time.

"Good evening, Alma!" Snow shouts over the hum of the engines. He can see her dropping in with the other soldiers. "So glad you could make it. Am I to presume that these five are with you?"

Her boots touch down. She doesn't answer, of course, but before the silence grows too long—

"_Haymitch!_"

"Katniss! Peeta!"

Katniss releases him and the two of them run over as he comes dropping down the rope ladder.

"What a delightful reunion," he says acidly.

"State your names and business," President Coin says to the others.

"The Doctor, and – well, fun, I guess. That's what the original idea was."

"Kill them," President Coin says sharply, and her armed soldiers take aim.

"Wait! No!" Katniss pulls away from Abernathy and grabs her by the arm. "Don't! They're fine – they're with me!"

President Coin eyes her distrustfully. "'With' you?"

"They're the ones that crashed into the arena!" she says. "They didn't mean to – and look, they're on your side, aren't they? If you really are a rebellion!"

"We're just passing through," says the one in the bowtie – the Doctor – carefully. "And since you've got everything nice and sorted, we'll probably be on our way soon—"

"You're staying here for questioning," she interjects. "Soldiers, down through the palace! Organize the officials to observe President Snow's abdication address!"

* * *

What follows is a surreal political whirlwind, in Harry's opinion.

They are questioned by the rebellion. President Snow is forced to surrender. He, along with many others, are thrown in holding cells pending their trial. The Doctor gets into an argument with President Coin. Katniss heeds the Doctor's advice to "watch out for that one."

And through it all, Draco Malfoy is unusually silent. Harry is almost incapable of taking his eyes off him.

That terrible-wonderful combination of overpowering lust and all-encompassing wanting still rages in Harry, stronger with every passing moment that look of peculiar fragility remains on Draco's face. He is angry without knowing why. He is drawn without wanting it.

As the Doctor says his goodbyes to Katniss and Peeta, Draco exits quietly into the TARDIS. Without quite knowing why, Harry follows.

"Did you not get what you wanted?"

Harry slams the TARDIS door shut. Draco spins on a heel and narrows his eyes.

"What are you talking about?"

"Is this _not what you wanted?_" Harry repeats. "President Snow out of power, a new government in place, power returning to the people of Panem?"

"Of course it's what I wanted," Draco bristles.

"Then why do you look like someone's punched you in the gut?"

Draco doesn't answer, but Harry can see – feel – his rage building in every line of his body.

"Did this ever have _anything to do_ with President Snow?"

"If you have something to _say_, Potter—"

"Or was this all about _you?_ About the War? About your inability to reconcile your past mistakes, your inability to make up for your sins?"

Draco bares his teeth at him. "You're straying into dangerous territory, Potter," he growls.

"Because I think it is," Harry says. "It took me a while, but I finally get it – I finally see. Seeing what Snow did to Panem ripped you up because it reminded you of what Voldemort did!"

"Potter."

"It _chews you up inside_ that you didn't fight for the right side, and so when you get a second chance to kill him in the form of President Snow—"

"_Potter_."

"—you _jump_ at the chance, because of _course_ you do, because it's the only way you think you can pay penance, the only way you can let yourself _move on_—!"

"_YES!_"

Harry should reel back from the sudden change of volume, but he does not. Some part of him was expecting it. Rage-lust burns inside him, between them, in the darkest parts of Draco's eyes.

"_Yes_, all right!" Draco shouts at him, and his voice is already hoarse. "_Yes!_ I am _not over it!_ I have never been over it! I have not forgiven myself for what I did, for not seeing the ugly truth until it nearly killed everyone around me!"

Harry's hands are shaking. He is not sure why.

"I have never been able to move past how readily and eagerly I helped a _madman!_ I hate myself for it every single day! _Is that what you wanted me to say?_"

Malfoy is crying, Harry notices. Angry, hateful tears rolling down his face, hands clenched at his sides. The TARDIS engines groan and mumble.

"I'm not over it and I don't think I'll ever _be_ over it! Why do you _hate me for it?_ Don't you see that you can never hate me more than I already hate myself?"

Harry's hands clench. He moves forward. "I don't hate you!" he bellows. "I have never hated you! Not once in our entire lives! Not when we were fifteen and stupid and not now!"

"Then why are you _doing this to me?_" he shouts back, eyes red with tears. "Why are you _ripping open my old wounds?_"

"Because I—!"

Harry's breath catches. They stare each other down.

"Because _what?_" Malfoy asks. He sounds frantic. "_Because what?_"

Because Harry admires him, he suddenly realizes. Because he empathizes and wants to make it better and—

—there is a beat of silence, and they crash into each other.

Perhaps Harry is the first to move; perhaps it's Draco. Or perhaps they both came together at the same time in the sudden and all-eclipsing magnetism. It is irrelevant. What matters is that the one instant that should be so impossibly different from the last is remarkably the same. The moment Harry kisses him – and kisses him and kisses him, deeply and ferociously – it is as though nothing has changed. Harry still wants him, still hates him. He knots his hands in his hair and bites hard on Draco's lower lip and it is exactly what he expected it to be and exactly how it was always going to happen.

"You're a fucking maniac, Potter," Malfoy gasps against his mouth, and Harry rips open Draco's vest and gnashes hungrily at the lines of his throat.


	7. The Value in Silence

He dislikes the sounds the pigs make.

The squealing, snorting, snuffling, shrieking – piteous and wailing, all.

The sounds of them get caught in his head like an unfading echo, a stain on the inside of his skull. Even the quiet sanctuary of his house offers little respite.

"You're crazy," shrieks his meal for the next few days. "You're crazy!"

"If you keep distracting me," he advises her, "not even the sedative will be able to prevent the pain."

"Stop, stop!" she wails as he saws through the bone. She jerks, and she shrieks, and her entire body seizes.

Hannibal sighs angrily, straightens. "I did warn you," he says. "Now you're going into shock."

She doesn't hear him, of course. She is still screaming, and all Hannibal can think about is the screaming of the pigs and how dreadfully noisy his life has become lately.

"Perhaps I should go back to gagging," he says. Then again, with the sedative, they're likely to choke on anything that goes into their mouths. Then the meat would spoil, which is almost as unpalatable as the screaming.

Any drug that would render them unconscious, of course, would taint the purity of the meat. So does the rush of endorphins, in its own way, though that was the entire point of keeping them conscious – to taste the flavor of fear.

He sighs, surrenders to the slowly-spreading pounding between his temples, and knocks her swiftly and soundly unconscious with a crack to the head with the heel of the bone saw. She stops screaming and drops unconscious at once.

Perhaps, he thinks to himself, he should find someone more docile. Someone quieter. If he ever really wants to taste the flavor of fear, it will have to be a fear unspoken. Or more vitally, un-screamed.

He returns to sawing through the bone, and the monotony brings up thoughts of her.

He doesn't know her story, but she is certainly the shining example of docility. And a thousand other things.

Perhaps, he thinks. Perhaps.

* * *

_The TARDIS opens the door for them before they have a chance to crash into it, and they go stumbling through to Draco's room, such that it is. Draco's back hits the sheet metal wall and Harry claws at the buttons of his finely tailored, expensive waistcoat._

_"This is mad," Draco gasps against his mouth, though it's not mad enough to keep him from tugging Harry's shirt up over his head. "Fuck, Potter, still fit, aren't you?"_

_"Auror training," Harry mutters, colliding into Draco again and doing everything he can to devour Draco whole in the process of kissing him. Draco Malfoy tastes exactly like Harry imagined he would – like high-end tea and mint – it's a subtle flavor that Harry cannot get enough of no matter how deeply, thoroughly, desperately he kisses. He feels Draco's fingertips grope hungrily across his stomach, up his chest._

_"This is mad," Draco whines again when Harry starts mouthing at the side of his neck._

_"Is it?" Harry asks him. "Then maybe you should stop tearing at my clothes."_

_Harry pulls back and looks down at him, because despite how fucking badly he wants to pin him to the nearby bed and fuck him until they both dissolve into atoms, he does want to make sure that Draco wants the same._

_Draco's pupils are lust-blown, his neck and chest flushed. And he is fucking gorgeous, Harry realizes, every line of him, every subtle sinew and lean muscle and inch of delectable skin._

_"Maybe I should."_

_"Or maybe," Harry says, "you shout turn off your brain for once in your life."_

_Draco smolders, and at that moment he is hotter than the surface of the sun. He starts popping the buttons one by one on his white Oxford and Harry physically aches from the desire to put his mouth on every inch of him._

_"Are you just going to stand, there, Potter," he says, low, "or are we going to fuck?"_

* * *

Three days later, everything has changed.

Or maybe nothing has changed. Frustratingly, Harry can't quite tell.

It's been three days since Harry and Draco had sex – violent, unapologetic, blisteringly hot sex – and in those same three days, they have not once talked about it.

Harry wonders why, but he can't bring himself to ask. Whatever is keeping Draco clammed up about is apparently also affecting Harry.

"This is bullshit," says the High Prince of All Galaxies, splattered in mud and with murder in his eyes. "This is bullshit! Someone arrest them!"

The guards are still circling him, but they don't attack. They're too afraid to, after watching the Doctor single-handedly deactivate their entire mechanized infantry with a screwdriver.

Harry is staring at Draco, who is standing just behind the Doctor, and trying to convince himself to say something. He really should say something. Harry is not the sort of guy who has sex with someone without at least talking about it afterwards. Isn't he? Granted, he's had sex with a grand total of one person in his lifetime, so perhaps he needs a wider sample.

"Look," says the Doctor, voice halfway between impatient and pitying, "I think it's really time that you just abdicate, don't you? You can't keep this up; you've got the combined fleets of the galaxies lined up at your door, and you're trying to arrest the one who brought them here?"

"_Arrest them!_" the High Prince squeals.

Harry decides he is going to say something. Yes, definitely, he is going to say something. It doesn't _have_ to be weird. He'll just be casual about it. There are lots of easy, not-weird ways to bring it up.

_Lovely weather on this planet, isn't it? By the way, are we going to talk about the fact that we had sex?_

"You all can't honestly expect me to… to…!"

_So, that sex that we had was pretty good. Fancy another go? Maybe with more communication this time?_

"Give it up, Your HIghness," Draco says. "There's nowhere to run. Abdicate now and maybe your subjects won't be angry enough to cut off your head."

The High Prince stands and sputters and clenches his fists like a petulant child.

_Hey, remember that time I had my cock up your arse?_

There was a time when Harry fancied himself a good communicator. He wonders what happened.

The High Prince is silent and tense, and even though Harry's mostly thinking about less terrible ways to bring up the topic of the sex he and Draco aren't talking about, he is also aware that the High Prince is right on the edge of formally abdicating. The guards around him are hesitating, and an empire is on the cusp of changing forever.

"_OOH, MICKY, YOU SO FINE, YOU SO FINE, YOU SO FINE YOU BLOW MY MIND!_"

It takes Harry a moment to register what it is he's hearing. The sound seems to be coming from Draco.

"Nice ringtone," the Doctor says.

"_HEY MICKY! HEY MICKY!_"

"Don't judge me," Draco says, pulling his phone from his vest pocket. "Sorry, everyone! Please return to your regularly scheduled coup d'état. I'll get this."

Harry isn't sure if he finds Draco's choice of ringtone confusing, hilarious, or endearing, and the uncertainty of it bothers him more than it probably should.

"Fine!" the High Prince says as Draco walks off, sliding to unlock the phone. "Fine, I abdicate!"

"Splendid!" the Doctor says. Harry looks over his shoulder at Draco, now standing by the TARDIS.

"Hello?"

"I'll see what I can do about talking the rebel armada into not killing you. Better than decent chance that you'll be worth more alive than dead."

"Excuse me? She – what?"

Harry frowns. Draco has the look of someone receiving a capital-B Bad phone call – that perfect combination of alarm and worry.

The Doctor uses the communicator given to him by one of the rebels to have them send the ship down to dock outside the palace. Harry assesses the situation, decides it's under control, and heads to Draco's side.

"All right?" he asks.

"I'll be there as soon as I can," Draco says to whoever called him. "Ten minutes. Or possibly a few weeks. Don't ask, it's – it's complicated – I'll be there. Thank you."

He hangs up.

"Draco?"

He stares at the phone for a moment as though he is trying to digest some tremendous news.

"Who was that?"

Draco takes a breath, but does not look at Harry. He hasn't spoken to Harry at all – at least not since Harry had him pinned to the bed, legs spread and back arced.

"Doctor!" Draco says suddenly. "We're leaving!"

"What's wrong?" Harry asks, but Draco still does not answer him – he does not even acknowledge him. Harry feels a stab of annoyance. "Draco."

It takes the Doctor a moment to finish up with the communicator before he heads over. "Sorry, what was that?"

"We're leaving," Draco says. "Right now."

The Doctor's face falls. "You don't want to stay for the party? Trust me, the Fanbi aristocracy _really_ know how to party—"

"My mother is missing."

It surprises the Doctor just as much as it does Harry.

"Missing?" the Doctor says. "Where did she go?"

"Can we talk about this while we are going to earth, please?"

"What happened?" Harry asks as the Doctor hurries to unlock the TARDIS door.

"I don't fucking know, do I?" Draco snaps at him, and it's the first time Draco has even spoken to him since they fucked. "Not like she's around to ask!"

Harry resists the urge to bare his teeth. "Back off, Malfoy, I'm trying to help."

"Well you're _not_," Malfoy hisses. "You are completely incapable of helping me, Potter, in any possible dimension!" The moment the Doctor unlocks the TARDIS door, he barges past him and up to the console. "Let's go!"

Harry stares after him and wonders what it is they're talking about.

* * *

_It is different, Harry decides, having sex with a bloke. Soft curves are replaced by firm lines; gentle soprano replaced by throaty tenor. But it isn't _that_ different. In fact, for every way it's different, there are ten ways in which it's remarkably the same._

_It's still messy, still physical, still sweaty. Still hot as hell – hotter, even, because Harry certainly does not remember being this into giving Ginny oral sex. But when it's Draco, Harry cannot get enough of it. His hands are everywhere on Draco's body – his stomach, his chest, his hips, his thighs – and Draco is so _responsive_, hissing and bucking against his touches, moaning gorgeously._

_"Potter," he says through his teeth, "if you don't fucking speed up I'm going to kick you in the head."_

_Harry looks up at him, smirking as much as he's able around Draco's long, lean cock._

_"How is it you have my cock in your mouth and I still want to punch your stupid face?" he bemoans, then— "Fuck!"_

_Harry'd given the tip an appreciative lick, and when Draco buckles against it, he pulls off and wets his fingers with his tongue._

_"I don't know," he answers Draco's question, now that his mouth is unoccupied. "It sounds like you have some issues to work out."_

_"I'll work out your issues, you fucking wanker—"_

_Draco stops talking with Harry works a finger into him. The way he falls apart so perfectly and exquisitely, he looks like he could be a figure in a Botticelli painting._

_"Yes," he says, voice partway between a moan and a sob. "Fuck – yes—"_

_Harry feels like he could cut glass with his cock for how hard he is just watching Draco writhe and moan on his finger. He adds a second into him, working Draco open._

_He climbs up Draco's body and mutters into his ear, "Fucking you right now be a religious experience."_

_"Shut the fuck up," Draco pants. "Deeper."_

_Harry's fingers go deeper, and Draco shouts himself hoarse, and Harry could come from the sound of it if he let himself._

* * *

"Dr. Lecter!"

It's the first thing Harry hears Draco say since he got the phone call. Despite his and the Doctor's incessant prodding, Draco had remained stony-face and tight-lipped about the whole thing, right up until the moment that the TARDIS engines went quiet.

Dr. Lecter, as it turns out, is a tall, handsome man – professional and impossibly clean, wearing a very well-tailored suit.

"Mr. Malfoy," he says, and Harry can't quite discern the accent, though it's plainly enough not American. "Good to finally meet you in person. I wish it was under better circumstances."

"Who's this?" the Doctor asks.

Draco looks distractedly back at him – clearly, he's in no place to be giving any length introductions, but he does his best. "Doctor, Potter, this is Dr. Hannibal Lecter. He's been my mother's psychiatrist for the past few months."

"Mr. Malfoy moved her to my care all the way from England," Dr. Lecter says, smiling gamely at Harry, and then at the Doctor. "Another Doctor? Which is your field?"

"Yes," the Doctor says, which isn't really an answer, and Dr. Lecter notices right away, by the look on his face.

"You said something about security footage," Draco says.

"Yes. This way."

They follow Dr. Lecter through the main artery of the hospital. It's a grand building, with tall windows and marble floors. It's so decadent that it hardly looks like a hospital at all.

"I've had to fight the powers that be every step of the way," Dr. Lecter admits, his hard-soled heels clicking sharply on the stone floor. "As I am in private practice, I merely rent use of the facilities and amenities."

"Malfoy," Harry says, "when did you move your mum to a mental hospital?"

Malfoy continues his pattern of not talking to Harry, and instead addresses Dr. Lecter. "If law enforcement are being uncooperative, I have diplomatic ties—"

"I appreciate your zeal, Mr. Malfoy," Dr. Lecter says, "but that won't be necessary. I have ties of my own, within the FBI. Though it is out of his usual purview, I have enlisted the help of an expert profiler who should be able to assess your mother's mental state and determine her whereabouts."

"A profiler?" Draco asks.

They go deeper into the hospital, and once the hallways stop being grand flagstone and tall windows, they become sterile tile and ugly cinderblock. More notably, they become full of police officers, all muttering to themselves.

"His name is Will Graham," Dr. Lecter says. "I've worked with him before and I can vouch for his skill."

"Whatever's necessary," Draco says.

"You're very thorough, Dr. Lecter," the Doctor says, voice thin. "You must care quite a lot about your patients."

Dr. Lecter looks sideways at him. His eyes are careful and analytical. "That is why people are so willing to ship their mothers across the Atlantic Ocean, presumably."

The Doctor hums. Harry frowns.

There are two patrol officers and one detective standing outside a large white door with a metal placard reading "SECURITY."

"Ah!" Dr. Lecter says. "Jack Crawford. Thank you again for agreeing so readily to help."

"Of course," says the detective – Jack Crawford, presumably. He is handsome and dark-skinned and broad-shouldered. "I'll admit it's a little bit refreshing, not to have to deal with a corpse."

"Detective Jack Crawford, may I introduce Draco Malfoy, the missing woman's son."

Draco shakes his hand perfunctorily. "How do you do?"

"And this is Harry Potter, and a man who Draco has only introduced as 'The Doctor.'"

"My name's a nightmare to pronounce," the Doctor says. "Good to meet you, Detective Crawford."

"We just found the security footage. And Mr. Malfoy, we need to ask you a few questions."

"Of course."

They step into the security room, which has one wall dominated by television screens. As they walk, Harry leans over to Draco and says, "I suppose a tracking spell would be useless in America with all that open space."

Draco glares at him and doesn't answer.

"Are you ever going to say something to me?"

"Fuck you, how's that?"

Harry sighs. "Awesome."

"All patient rooms in the ward your mother was kept in have video surveillance," Detective Crawford says. "24/7, full color, even in HD. Which makes this all the more puzzling."

"Makes what puzzling?" Draco asks.

"Roll the tape," Detective Crawford says.

The security guard nods and hits a small button on the computer in front of him. A screen on the bottom row flickers, then starts playing again.

It takes Harry a moment to understand what he's seeing. The camera seems to be mounted in the upper corner of a small, spartan, but clean room with a single barred window, a bed, and a desk. There is a figure asleep on the bed, and all Harry can make out about her is the long, blonde hair. Harry recognizes her at once as Narcissa Malfoy.

For a few moments, all she does is breathe. Then, there's a flicker in the video feed. Then Narcissa shoots upright. Then the screen goes black.

"What the _fuck_ was that?" Draco hisses.

"That was whoever abducted your mother disabling the camera," Jack Crawford answers.

"_Abducted?_" Draco says, whirling on a heel. "I thought she had just wandered off! You're telling me someone _took her?_"

"Easy, Mr. Malfoy," Dr. Lecter says. "I know it is difficult, but it's advisable to remain calm. You are in very good hands."

"Well, it had to have been one of the hospital staff," Draco says.

Everyone seems surprised, including Harry and Jack Crawford.

"That was our running theory," Detective Crawford says, "yes. How—?"

"I saw the cameras on the way in; they're built into the wall. They'd need to get into this room to disable a camera, and to do that they'd need a key card."

"Just so," Dr. Lecter says, sounding impressed. "You have a very sharp mind, Mr. Malfoy."

"Why would someone just take her?" Draco says, and he is starting to sound more frantic. "Are they taking her for ransom?"

"I don't think anyone who's not a w—" Harry stops himself mid-sentence – it's easy to forget that they're back on earth. "I don't think anyone who's not from Britain would know of your fortune."

"Will's here," says a voice from behind. It's a patrol officer. "He's heading to the crime scene."

"If anyone in this world can shed some light on your question, Mr. Malfoy," Dr. Lecter says, "it is Will Graham."

* * *

_Fucking Draco Malfoy, as Harry thought it might be, is a religious experience._

_Every inch of him is white hot and supple and gorgeous. He is nothing but smooth, pale skin and long limbs and electric wanting. He arcs against every touch, breathes out on every stroke. He is sprawled out under Harry, open and vulnerable, and he takes Harry's cock so beautifully it is almost physically painful to watch._

_"Potter," he hisses as Harry admires him, fingertips trailing down his sides, to his hips. "Potter, if I wanted a gentle massage, I'd go to a fucking masseuse."_

_Now if only he'd shut his fucking mouth, he'd be perfect._

_"Anyone ever told you how fucking pushy you are, Malfoy?"_

_"Maybe if you stopped going so slow and fucked me properly, we wouldn't have to have this conversation—"_

_Harry slams him back down onto the bed and rocks his hips forward, deeply, brutally, and Malfoy throws his head back and chokes on the rest of his sentence._

_"Way too fucking pushy for a man in your position."_

_To keep him happy – or perhaps just to keep him quiet – Harry stops being gentle. His weight presses Draco down into the mattress, pins his arms over his head, and moves faster, more thoroughly. The reaction is immediate – Harry can feel all the little pieces of Draco Malfoy start to fall apart as he fucks him open._

_"Fuck," Draco says, voice strangled. "Fuck, yes, harder."_

_Harry angles up and redoubles his speed and Draco shouts himself hoarse, bucking up against him._

_"Way too pushy for a man this desperate for a good fucking," Harry pants against the side of his face, keeping Draco's arms pinned to the bed._

_"I'm going to come," Draco half-sobs._

_"I can tell," Harry answers. Pressed flush against him as he is, Harry can feel it in every taut line of his body. "You're going to come off my cock alone, aren't you?"_

_"Merlin fuck fuck oh God fuck yes yes yesyesyesyesyes—"_

_And God, the only thing more gorgeous than pistoning into a wanton, desperate Draco Malfoy is watching him come. He throws his head back and Harry gnashes his teeth against his throat and Harry is coming along with him, with such incredible intensity that he can barely see, and Draco's body clamps down around him, and Harry empties into him, and even though Harry's seen a lot of it he is convinced at that moment that the rest of the universe does not exist._

* * *

Will Graham is tall and scrawny and gangly and has the look of someone who is never quite entirely put together. Harry can tell at once that he likely falls somewhere on the autism spectrum.

"Did you bring her file?" Will asks the moment they arrive at the room, quarantined behind crime scene tape.

"Hello, Will," Dr. Lecter says. "And yes, I did."

Will stretches his hand out, though he does so without turning around to look at them. He is staring intently at an assortment of little clay figures, kiln-fired and about two inches tall each, arranged neatly on the night stand. He flips open the file.

"You're the profiler?" Draco asks, but Will doesn't respond.

"He is the best in his field," Dr. Lecter assures him.

"And he's going to build a profile of my mother?"

"No," he answers. "Your mother is the victim. Rarely do we need profiles for victims."

Harry frowns. "Then what—?"

"Victimology," Detective Crawford supplies. "He needs to know what it is about your mother that drew her abductor."

"Sustained unresponsiveness," Will says suddenly. "But this file doesn't mention the inciting incident."

"War," Dr. Lecter says neutrally.

"What war?"

"In the mideast," he continues. "Mrs. Malfoy was an expat from during the height of the Assad regime."

He is lying so effortlessly that Harry nearly believes it before he remembers that it is completely untrue.

He frowns at Malfoy, but Malfoy is ignoring him (still). He looks to Dr. Lecter, who raises one hand and—

Is that the tip of a wand in his sleeve?

Dr. Lecter is, among other things, a wizard, apparently.

"Silenced under the atrocities of a dictator," Will says, shutting the file. "Are you the son?"

He's still not looking at them, but it's easy enough to tell who he's talking to.

"Yes," Draco says.

"What do you know about these clay figures?"

Draco looks at them, then flinches.

"She was ripping her nails out," he answers. "I wanted to give her something to do with her hands. She… she seemed to like the clay."

Harry finds himself alarmed, for reasons he can't quite identify, that he had never heard of this until now. In the end, he'd very much liked Narcissa Malfoy. If Draco had only told him…

Will picks one up. It's small and misshapen, a sort of lopsided "M" shape that bends in on itself in the middle.

"Supplicant, silent, and easily abducted," Will says. "Plenty of reasons to kidnap someone like that."

Draco averts his gaze. Harry frowns in sympathy and reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder. Draco jerks away from him at once and leaves the room.

And Harry is half angry, half wounded, and he wants to go after him, but he also does not. Most of all he wants all of this to be less complicated.

"You have done more with less in the past," Dr. Lecter says.

"Let him go," the Doctor mutters to Harry. "He's not…"

"Not what?"

The Doctor sighs. "He's just not."

"He can't just not talk about it."

"He can, I assure you."

"I'll need a minute," Will says.

"Gentlemen," Dr. Lecter invites, making an ushering motion out of the room.

"Dr. Lecter," Harry says, "I'm sorry, but – what exactly is wrong with Malfoy's mother?"

Dr. Lecter assesses him for a moment with cold, clinical eyes. "That is a matter of doctor-patient confidentiality, Mr. Potter," he says. "But you fought in the War, same as Mr. Malfoy. Presumably you can make an educated guess."

"That's another thing," Harry says, "why is a wizard living as a Muggle psychiatrist?"

"I find the non-magical life peaceful, especially after living through a would-be Dark Lord of my own."

It takes Harry a moment to place what he means. "You lived under Gellert Grindelwald? You're German?"

"Lithuanian born," Dr. Lecter corrects. "Naturalized French. Grindelwald had a wide reach. I wasn't safe in Lithuania, nor was I safe in France when I fled there. I was forced to go all the way to America to truly escape him."

Harry frowns. That would make Dr. Lecter a great deal older than he appears – of course, wizards are known to have long lives, and Harry finds he doesn't have much trouble believing him to be at least 60. His body is young and lean but there's a lot of age in his eyes.

"Do you think we can find her?" the Doctor asks, coming up behind Harry and rubbing his hands together.

"I think," Dr. Lecter answers, "that if there is anyone in the world who can, he is standing in her room already."

* * *

_Draco stares in silence at the ceiling. His body is warm and soft, still thrumming from post-orgasm. Every muscle in his body, every inch of sex-warmed skin and lust-weakened muscle, is telling him that this is good, that he should stay, that this will start something worth seeing through to its end._

_It is his mind that disagrees._

_He rolls his head and looks at Harry. He is sleeping soundly, eyes shut lightly, one arm thrown over Draco's stomach. His breaths are smooth and deep. In the low, obscuring blue of the TARDIS floodlights – they had gone on reserve power at some point, and Draco's not quite sure why – he is something from a Cézanne painting. Half-visible, but still handsome. Smudged in shadow, but still retaining the handsome features._

_And even though it should feel soft and intimate, all Draco can feel is dread. What has he done?_

_Draco is not and never has been the sort of person who sleeps with people who don't respect him. It is the lowest bar he can set, given how much he likes sex._

_But he and Harry Potter have been doing nothing but rip each other apart from the word "go," and with one stupid snog against the TARDIS console, suddenly they're in bed?_

_Draco is absolutely disgusted with himself. Childhood fantasies are one thing, but Potter does not and has never actually liked and respected him. He only recently graduated to "not hate," so revealed when Potter shouted it at him during one of their many, many arguments._

_And Draco slept with him anyway, because he thinks with his cock, apparently._

_Looking at Harry Potter sleeping there makes Draco sick to his stomach. He turns his head away, then eventually climbs out of bed – quietly as he can, to avoid waking him. He dresses and kicks on his shoes and leaves._

_All he can do at this point, he supposes, is do everything in his power to pretend like it didn't happen, because Draco certainly cannot let it happen again._

* * *

Dr. Lecter sees him on the far side of the foyer. He is lean and blonde and handsome, and just as interesting as he remembers. He announces his presence by walking up from behind, and Draco Malfoy gives a start and looks over his shoulder.

"Dr. Lecter," he says, rubbing at his eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."

"I've been told that I am exceptionally quiet," Dr. Lecter answers. "I wanted to extend my personal apologies and sympathies. I feel personally responsible for what's happened to your mother."

"Was she making any progress?" he asks.

Dr. Lecter pauses, inclines his head to the side. "Not by any layman's definition," he admits, "though I noticed certain improvements in communication."

Draco heaved a long, shuddering sigh.

"A woman who's been was she's been through – it would be very easy for those around her to give up on her," he says. "I remain impressed that you did not."

"I think some part of my mind kept telling me to," Draco admits. "It's been so long since Father died. Every day she maintained her silence, I thought…"

"I can only imagine why you had to reach out to a psychiatrist all the way across the Atlantic," Dr. Lecter says.

"The taboo on the name of Malfoy will never go away," Draco admits. "There were hospitals that refused to even admit her."

Dr. Lecter inclines his head. "Do you think them justified?"

"Why?" Draco asks. He self-consciously straightens the front of his vest. "Am I your patient now, too?"

Dr. Lecter smiles demurely. "My apologies," he says. "Old habits. I mean only to express concern. Though I will admit that you fascinate me in your own way, Mr. Malfoy."

"I assure you I am unworthy of fascination," Draco answers.

"I politely disagree. I am always interested in how the human mind copes with a world that refuses to forgive it. Some wither, some fight back, and some run away. Which one did you do?"

Draco spends a while giving Dr. Lecter an appraising look, but he does not answer.

"Draco?"

The voice visibly sets every nerve in Draco's body on edge. He turns and glares dagger at its source.

"You should have asked for help," Harry says. "I could have pulled some strings and gotten your mother admitted."

"I don't need your charity, Potter," Draco snaps with what is perhaps undue viciousness. "Not then, not now, _not ever_."

Dr. Lecter notices a painful conflict of emotions on his face. "I'm just trying to—"

"I'm not interested."

He storms past. Dr. Lecter watches him go.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Dr. Lecter says. He had not been expecting to be this fascinated by him.

"Dr. Lecter?"

He turns, reluctantly. It's Jack.

"Will found something."

* * *

_When Draco exits into the TARDIS's console room, he notices that the emergency floodlights are not just in his bedroom, but all over the ship. He sees the Doctor bent over the console, one of its panels flipped open to allow him easier access to its inner workings._

_"Hi," Draco says. The Doctor looks up briefly and smiles._

_"Sleep well?"_

_"Yeah," he lies, before quickly changing the subject. "What's wrong with the TARDIS?"_

_"Some sort of energy fluctuation went through the core," the Doctor answers. Draco doesn't know what that means, but apparently it involves pulling out handfuls of wires and making lots of adjustments with his sonic screwdriver. "The engine shut down to protect itself from overload."_

_"What energy?" Draco asks, leaning against the railing and folding his arms over his chest._

_"Don't know," the Doctor answers, "but there was a lot of it. Maybe a quasar pulse or a supernova."_

_Draco nods, and wishes he had a cup of tea._

_"Are we going to talk about why you smell like sex?"_

_Draco's body goes rigid. Perhaps he should have known that the Doctor would be able to tell._

_The Doctor is watching him carefully, still mostly bent over the console, pale eyes searching. Draco doesn't answer._

_"Curious thing, silence," he says. "Obscuring or clarifying, there is always some meaning in the words that are not said. I gather you're not pleased at what's happened."_

_Calling Draco "not pleased" with it, of course, is an understatement in the extreme. He is so angry with himself that he could scream. He's angry at himself and at Potter and at everything else._

_"Silence shouldn't go on too long," is all the Doctor has to say about it._

* * *

What Will found, as it turns out, is an oil painting. And before he offers any explanation as to why there was an oil painting stashed just beneath the top layer of sheets in the room of a kidnapped woman, they are leaving in a car.

"I don't understand," Draco says as he looks at it. "What is it I'm looking at?"

"The kidnapper left it there," Dr. Lecter explains. "Cryptic messages like this are usually indicative of pathological behavior."

Harry and the Doctor are in the third row of the police-issue SUV, and are looking over Draco's shoulders as he inspects the painting. It's a plain canvas – now sealed in a large evidence bag – tattered slightly around the edges, though the painting itself is lovely. It depicts Narcissa, highlighted in surreal and ethereal light, sitting by a a large window open to a vile, red-and-black landscape.

"So we're dealing with a serial kidnapper?" Draco asks.

Dr. Lecter and Will exchange a knowing look.

"It is unlikely that the amount of effort and finesse put into this was done solely for kidnapping," Will answers delicately.

"So my mother was taken with other reasons in mind." His voice is clipped. His mind is already filling out all the possibilities, and his hands tighten around the edge of the canvas.

"This painting seems to be an indication of her safety," Will says. "Or at least what the kidnapper perceives as safety. It means there's a chance she may still be alive."

"A _chance?_"

"More relevantly," Jack Crawford, who's driving, says into the rear view mirror, "Will recognizes the location depicted out the window in the painting."

"This person has done everything very carefully and deliberately," Will says. "He sees himself as paying great respects. There's a good chance that whoever took your mother greatly admires her for some reason."

"Admires her," Draco repeats, voice halfway between incredulous and terrified. "He admires her, so he kidnaps her."

"We are not dealing with an entirely stable mind," Jack reminds him.

"God knows what he's doing to her," Draco says, voice trembling, and he stuffs the canvas away.

"Where is it we're going?" the Doctor asks.

"It's a bluff overlooking the Chesapeake Bay," Will says. "It's pretty backwoods, but I've been there before."

"Hm." The Doctor lowers his voice and addresses only Draco. "If you want," he says, "I can run a scan of my own. Your genetic sample is in the TARDIS database already; finding a close genetic match should only take a few hours if I overclock the process."

Draco hesitates, then nods. "When we get back."

"This is it," Will says suddenly. "Turn left."

They turn left onto a road that exists only because of what isn't there. The underbrush is cleared away, creating a narrow path through the trees.

"This is quite out of the way, Will," Dr. Lecter says. "How do you know about this place?"

"It's about ten miles east of my property," he answers. "I like hiking sometimes."

The forest around them gets denser and denser, until quite abruptly it stops, and they are on the edge of a bluff overlooking a great, blue bay.

"There's the Chesapeake," Jack says, killing the engine. "CSI should be here soon with the equipment. What can you make of it, Will?"

Will is the first out, grabbing the canvas painting and carving his way easily through the tall, knee-high grass.

"This is definitely the spot," he says, holding up the canvas. "Do you see?"

Draco peers over his shoulder. It takes him a moment, but he does. The perspective is dead-on – from where they're standing, the view is nearly identical, save for the deep red and black colors, to the view out the window in the oil painting.

"So he's been here," Dr. Lecter says. "If what is on the other side of Narcissa's window is meant to represent danger within the painting, then it must also represent danger to her abductor."

"We're running out of time," Draco says, voice low.

"I'll have CSI comb this area," Detective Crawford assures him, putting a hand on Draco's shoulder. "If there's anything to be found, we'll find it."

"And have them go there, too," Will says suddenly, pointing far across the water.

Harry has to squint at it to see it properly. "Is that a lighthouse?"

"Long out of commission, it looks like," Dr. Lecter says.

"An abandoned lighthouse in the middle of backwoods Virginia is a great place to keep a kidnapped woman," Jack says. "I'll call a judge for a warrant."

"I want to go," Draco says urgently.

"Mr. Malfoy, I understand that this is an impossible situation for you," Jack says gently, "but you're in no shape to be too heavily involved in this case."

"If it's my _mother_ in there—" Draco begins.

"—all the more reason for you to stay here," Jack interjects. "We've got this under control, Mr. Malfoy."

Malfoy takes in a shuddering breath, rakes both hands through his hair. He looks tattered, somehow, frayed – like a rope sawed down to fibers.

Jack and Will move closer to the bluff, speaking in low tones. Dr. Lecter frowns sympathetically and places a hand on Draco's back.

"You need not doubt their skill," he tells Draco.

"I don't doubt their skill," Draco answers, and his voice is thin like brittle glass. "I doubt my own constitution."

"I understand," Dr. Lecter says.

"She is the only family I have left," Draco says. "If I lose her – but perhaps I lost her years ago—"

Harry frowns, heart aching. He takes a half-step forward. "Draco," he says, "it's fine, they'll find her—"

But when he reaches out to place a reassuring hand on Draco's shoulder, he is met with a violent jerk away.

"I don't _need your pity!_"

Harry recoils, anger and hurt and a thousand other things snarling in his gut. "I'm not trying to pity you!"

"Perhaps it's best," Dr. Lecter interjects, voice too loud, in an obvious effort to defuse the sudden tension, "if you take the evening off, Draco."

Draco takes a shuddering breath and turns away from Harry, who is still having trouble figuring out if he is more angry or hurt by Draco's constant rebuffs of his attempts at comfort when he so easily accepts Dr. Lecter's.

"Let me make you dinner," Dr. Lecter says

Draco seems very far away, lost in his own head, and he doesn't seem to understand the concept of the invitation at first. "Dinner?"

Dr. Lecter smiles. "Dinner," he repeats. "I'm something of a culinarian. I take great joy in cooking for friends and acquaintances."

Draco sighs deeply. "Dinner," he says. "Yes, all right. It must be better than pacing the floor waiting for news that may not come. What's on the menu?"

Dr. Lecter's smile widens. "Pork."

* * *

"It will take a few hours," the Doctor says as the TARDIS engines begin to thrum. "Genetic sweeps are exhausting on planets with as much biodiversity as earth. But I've overclocked it, so it won't take as long as it could."

Harry is watching Draco, feeling like his every muscle is made of whipcord drawn taut. Draco is hunched over in the pilot's seat, hands knotted in his hair. There is nothing Harry wants more at that moment than to go to his side and comfort him, but the last two times he tried that, he was thoroughly and viciously rebuked.

"If any immediate genetic relatives are on this continent," the Doctor says, "the TARDIS will be able to find them. Don't worry."

"I cannot avoid worrying," Draco says miserably.

The Doctor sighs and rubs at his back.

"I already lost her once," Draco says. "I don't think I can take losing her a second time."

Despite what Harry knows to be his better judgment, he tries one more time, because he has to, because seeing Draco in so much pain is unbearable for reasons he can't quite name. He steps forward.

"If there's anything—"

"There isn't," Draco snaps at him sharply, and even though Harry should have expected that it was coming, he finds that he is still hurt.

Reigning in his mounting frustration, Harry says, "I'm just trying to help."

"I don't want your help, Potter," he growls. "I did not ask for it, I do not appreciate it."

"You were ready enough to accept Dr. Lecter's help!"

"That's because I like Dr. Lecter."

It would have hurt less, Harry thinks, if he'd been physically slapped.

"And because Dr. Lecter likes me," Draco adds.

"Boys," the Doctor says. He no longer sounds agitated, Harry notices, just profoundly sad. "Isn't there enough hurt already? We don't need to add to it."

Draco swallows hard. "I'm going to go have dinner," he says. "Doctor, send me a text when the TARDIS comes up with something."

The Doctor nods miserably and Draco storms from the TARDIS. Harry stares after him, and his chest physically aches from the pain. He wishes he knew why this hurt so bad, why after all these years Draco Malfoy still knows how to bring him to every extreme with such perfect acuity.

"I don't think he meant that," the Doctor says softly.

"Sounded like he did," Harry answers.

* * *

"This smells exquisite," Draco says as Dr. Lecter sets the plate down in front of him.

"Tenderloin," Dr. Lecter says with a smile, "in balsamic plum reduction, with orzo and walnut pilaf."

"Clearly, I should have hired you as a chef instead of a psychiatrist," Draco says. He plucks the glass of wine from the table, inhaling deeply. "Zinfandel?"

"Grenache," Dr. Lecter says, setting down his own plate and tucking himself neatly into the chair at the head of the table. "You were close."

"I think you're right," Draco says, smiling in the way that only a man in tremendous pain can. "I think a night off was just what the doctor ordered."

"It is quite literally what the doctor ordered," Dr. Lecter returns, smiling.

Draco takes a small forkful of the pilaf. The sound it draws out of him is not quite human.

"Good?"

"Bold without being overpowering," Draco says. "Merlin, you could have easily made millions as a chef."

Dr. Lecter laughs. "Perhaps," he says. "The subtle science and exact art of cooking is fascinating to me, though not quite as fascinating as the intricacies of the human mind. One must follow one's passions whenever possible."

"I suppose one must," Draco says. "I don't think I mentioned – you have a lovely home. The art is extraordinary."

"Thank you. Most of it I did myself."

"You are a man of far too many talents, Dr. Lecter; you're making me jealous."

"Oh, I'm quite sure you have plenty of talents all your own."

Draco saws into the meat lightly with his knife, though he's looking at the painting on the wall across from him. It depicts a great, black stag silhouetted on a deep blue sky in a spindly, winter forest. There is something about it that is familiar – very familiar – but Draco can't quite put his finger on it.

"Would you ever consider therapy yourself, Draco?" Dr. Lecter asks.

Draco tears his eyes away. "I don't imagine I'd ever have the time or inclination," he answers. "Why? Are you offering?"

"I just may be," Dr. Lecter admits. "I did not expect you to, but I have found that you fascinate me, Mr. Malfoy."

"Do I?"

"Like shattered glass, the ways in which you have broken only seem to make you sharper."

Draco smirks. "Are you flirting with me?" he asks, before taking a bite of meat.

Dr. Lecter inhales deeply. "I'm not sure," he admits.

Draco chews slowly on the meat, mouth twisting. "What did you say this meat was? Pork?"

"I feel a strange desire to pick you apart, piece by piece, and see how you can be fit back together."

"This does not taste much like pork," Draco says. "It's good – the plum reduction is divine – but the meat…"

"I wonder what that desire says about me," Dr. Lecter says. "I wonder what it says about you."

Dr. Lecter's fingers are steepled over his plate, and he is looking at Draco with an unsettling intensity. All at once, Draco feels on edge.

He looks back to the painting, and he realizes why he finds it familiar. The intense shadows, the quasi-impressionism – it's not the image he finds familiar, it's the style. The style is remarkably similar to the oil painting found in his mother's room.

Draco slowly looks down at the pork. Something churns in his stomach.

That is impossible, surely.

"Whether I am drawn to you as a man of science or as a more base creature I cannot yet say," Dr. Lecter says, "but I am most certainly drawn."

Draco's phone jingles with a text message in his pocket.

"Excuse me," Draco says softly. "Let me put it on silent."

He draws his phone out, and as he switches it to silent, he sees the preview message on the screen—

_YOUR MOTHER'S GENETIC SIGNAL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE._

Draco stills for a half-second, mutes the phone, and puts it away.

He turns back to Dr. Lecter.

"Do you think they will find anything at the lighthouse, Dr. Lecter?" he asks, voice neutral.

Dr. Lecter cants his head to one side. "Do you?" he asks.

Draco prays he does not notice the way his fingers clench around his silverware.

* * *

"_Draco!_" the Doctor shouts into his phone as the TARDIS goes careening through space. "_If you get this message, call me back at once! She's inside the house! She's inside the house!_"

"Why is this _taking_ so long?" Harry asks frantically, shouting over the wailing engines. "Why isn't the TARDIS just disappearing!"

"The power fluctuation from last night damaged parts of the engine!" the Doctor cries. "It can only travel manually!"

"He could be _dying!_" Harry says. "Dr. Lecter could be _killing him right now!_ Doctor, _hurry up!_"

"_Hold on!_"

The Doctor pulls down on a lever and they go tumbling through space until—

_Crash!_ A tremendous surge of sound – they have clearly collided with something they were not meant to collide with. The TARDIS lights flicker, then go back online.

"What—?" Harry begins, regaining his balance.

"Direct method!" the Doctor says. "Let's go; Draco's in danger!"

Harry scrambles to keep up, ripping his wand out of his sleeve.

They burst through the TARDIS door and into rubble and rising dust. Whatever they landed in, it is partially collapsed. Harry can see furniture and wiring sticking out of the debris. It must be Dr. Lecter's house – or rather, the two-thirds of it left standing.

"_Malfoy!_" Harry cries.

There's a clatter of spellwork from somewhere in the intact portions of the building. Harry surges with adrenaline and goes vaulting over a large piece of drywall. "Malfoy!" he shouts again.

He comes around the corner and finds them engaged in a blinding, deafening magical duel. Dr. Lecter throws a slashing spell; Draco counters with a reflection; Dr. Lecter parries. Harry launches into the fray without thinking, catching Lecter off-guard with a propulsion spell to the chest that sends him flying.

"Draco!" he says, and he grabs him by the arm. "Draco, are you okay—?"

"The ceiling!" the Doctor calls, and before Harry can look up— "Get back!"

Lecter had been thrown into a loosened support beam, apparently, and half of the kitchen ceiling collapses over him with a deafening noise. It's hard to tell if he is crushed, but Harry hardly has the time to consider it.

"The house is falling apart!" Harry says. "We have to get out—!"

"_No!_ She's down there!"

"What?"

"_My mother! She is still down there!_"

There's another great crack of drywall. Harry ducks instinctively, but only dust rains down – thus far.

"There's a trapdoor—" he says.

"Fine, let's go!" Harry says. "Go, go, go! Before the entire thing collapses!"

* * *

There were things in Dr. Lecter's basement that the Doctor would rather not think about. Medical instruments and chemicals whose intended purpose had surely been twisted into something darker.

But Narcissa was there. She had been alive – missing her left leg, but alive; unresponsive after everything, but alive. They had gotten her out. They had made it to a local hospital.

"He did not like the way the others squealed," Draco says.

He isn't turned around, but the Doctor hadn't been going to any great lengths to disguise his presence.

"He admired her… quiet."

The Doctor looks down at the bed where Draco's mother lies supine, one leg the less, pale for lack of blood, but with a steady heart monitor beeping in the corner of the nondescript hospital room.

"She made it out," the Doctor says, which is perhaps the only comfort to be found. "She'll be all right. Magical prosthetics can offer complete mobility."

"What does she need mobility for?"

The Doctor frowns.

"She was awake for a time," Draco says. His voice is getting quieter. "Conscious. She looked right at me. I gripped her hand and sobbed her name and she didn't…"

Draco doubles forward. The Doctor pulls up a chair next to him and gathers him into his arms.

"After everything," he rasps, "she didn't…"

The Doctor offers no further words of comfort. There are none. Draco sits trembling in his arms.

"Harry wants to help," the Doctor says. "He says that he can admit her to a fine institution in Britain—"

"No," he says. "I can't deal with him right now."

"He just wants to help."

"I don't _want his help,_" he sobs. "I want to stay with my mother and I want her to be better, I want her _back_, after everything that's happened I want her _back_."

The Doctor sighs into Draco's hair. "I"ll give you some time," he says. "We'll leave you to it for a few weeks."

The TARDIS – tucked rather conspicuously into the corner of the hospital room – squeals as its door opens. Harry emerges, looking cautious.

Draco looks back at him, hurt and broken.

Harry stares at him like he wants to say something, but the silence shouldn't go on as long as it does.


	8. Rudra-Siva

The bells of Pashupatinath ring low and soft, and the mist settled into the courtyard vibrates with the sound.

In the darkness through the fog, a man in black runs up the temple steps toward the largest ashram, no more visible than shadow, no more audible than what little sound his quick footsteps make on the stone.

At the top of the long stairway, its golden pagoda just piercing the top of the low fog, is the ashram of the inner courtyard. The figure in black leaps through an open window as soon as he reaches it without pausing for breath, straight past the gleaming statues and shrines in silver and gold as though he had not seen them. He bolts straight through the end of the main room, through a nondescript door, and down, down, down.

He wheels to a stop when he finds a door standing open. The room beyond is unlit, an unbroken wall of shadow, and for a moment the stillness was so eclipsing that the trained observer could hear the man's breath and heartbeat.

"Looking for this?"

He spins on a heel. The voice is low and languid, speaking in unaccented Nepali. The stranger comes melting out of the shadows, and clutched in his hand—

"Drop that horn, priest, you know what you hold!"

He speaks as loud as he is able to speak without drawing undue attention. He takes a half step forward, ready to lunge, but the other, still half-obscured in the shadows, takes a quick step back.

"Ah-ah-ah," he says. The horn vanishes into his robe. "Not so fast. Pray tell me what the leader of the largest opium smuggling ring in Nepal wants with a religious artifact."

There comes no answer. Fingertips silently slide along the polished hilt of a throwing knife.

"You know much, priest."

"So I have been told."

"Far too much, by some counts."

What happens next is so quick it is nearly invisible to the eye, a blur of pale colors and shadows – a soft hiss of metal, the splitting of skin. Two blades are unsheathed, but only one clatters to the floor. It is not the priest who tumbles to the ground.

The man in black shudders and gurgles, lifeblood swiftly emptying through his fingertips clenched tightly around his throat. The priest ducks over him, turns him over, and opens his robe.

"Who—" he chokes through a mouthful of blood, "—what priest knows these things?"

Before he answers, the priest pulls a tightly-rolled piece of paper from the pocket of his cloak. He rises to his feet over him.

"No priest at all," he answers, suddenly abandoning Nepali in favor of English. He pulls down the hood of his cloak. Long, dark hair falls out; gray eyes shine in the low light. "My name is Sherlock Holmes. You may as well know my name; you'll be dead in less than ten seconds."

He lies sputtering and bleeding out underneath him. "The _lingam_—" he gurgles.

"Holy relics do not belong in the hands of evil men," Sherlock Holmes answers. "Thank you for the letter. Know that your death served a good purpose, even though your life never did."

He moves to walk away, but a hand grabs his ankle.

"You do not know its power," he chokes. "Soon, it will be your doom – it will be the doom of us all—"

Holmes frowns, gives his leg a jerk to free himself from his grasp. He leaves the hallway, pulling his hood up again. He has no time for mythology. The letter, he is sure, will answer all his questions.

* * *

The largest window in the cottage stands open, and sea air comes hissing inside. The sunset lights the room orange-gold, and everything is so ecstatically beautiful that Draco can almost forget the ugly truth of things.

"How is she?" Tyrion asks, voice crackled by a sigh.

Draco does not need to look; these days, his eyes never leave her. She is sitting on the far end of the room, not looking at the window and its exquisite view of the Mediterranean. She is not looking at anything; her eyes stare forward but she sees nothing. She fusses with the little lump of clay, forming that same distorted "M" shape.

"The same," Draco answers.

"Hers is not an uncommon affliction," Tyrion assures him. "In Westeros, they call it catatonia."

"Here, it's called stupor." Draco sighs. "I don't know what to do. Trauma has done nothing. Weeks of support and love have done nothing. I am running out of things to give her other than my own beating heart."

"I can't help but think this has less to do with her and more to do with you, my friend," Tyrion says.

Draco sighs, sits back on the divan. He forces himself to look away, out the window, where the ocean gleams under the sunset.

"Letting go of a parent is the one of the hardest things we are called upon to do," Tyrion says. "I had to do it, in my own way. No good comes of punishing yourself over what happens to your parents."

"She's my mother," Draco says softly.

"I know."

Draco sits forward, sighs into his phone.

"And I know you want to fix it, but sooner or later you must accept that there may be nothing you can do. Whether by the forced acceptance within your own mind or the grinding decay of time, it will happen. I'd just see you happy."

Draco fusses with the hem of his jumper. "How is the Red Keep?" he asks.

"Don't avoid your own mind, Draco."

"I'm not," Draco lies.

"The Red Keep is spiraling into chaos and uncertainty, so it's a fairly standard Tuesday. Now please, friend, for my sake if not your own, go out and do something."

"There's nothing to do," Draco says, rising out of the divan and standing by the window. He leans into the wind off the sea, breathing deeply the scent of salt on the wind.

"That wasn't your attitude when you and the Doctor lied your way right up to the Tower of the Hand."

Draco sighs.

"Listen, I have to go," Tyrion says. "I think there's been another assassination."

"Take care of yourself, Tyrion."

"No promises."

"I'm serious."

Draco can't hear him smile, of course, but he almost feels like he can. "I'll text you once it's seen to, how's that?"

He smirks. "It will have to do."

They exchange brief goodbyes and Draco taps the red button to end the call. For a while he stares out the window, rolling his phone between his hands and watching the ocean.

One last time, he looks back at his mother. She has not moved, not once, not since he put her in that chair after breakfast.

He unlocks his phone again and speed dials number two – "TARDIS."

* * *

Three hundred lightyears away from earth and orbiting a black hole, a phone rings.

Harry sticks his head up from beneath the floor of the console.

"Doctor!" he shouts. "Phone!"

There's no answer. The phone keeps ringing.

"Are you stuck in the swimming pool again?"

Still no answer, though Harry thinks he hears a muffled shout, which can only be some variety of "yes."

"I told you it was a bad idea to swap out the non-Newtonian fluid!" Harry shouts, climbing out from the underbelly of the ship. He's covered in engine grease and strands of long, black fur. "And it's still stuck in there, by the way! It bit me!"

There's another muffled shout. Harry can't be bothered to find out what he's saying while the phone's still ringing.

He picks it up, but realizes for a moment he doesn't quite know how to answer the phone in this situation. He eventually decides—

"Black hole, Terriban Galaxy."

There's a brief lapse of silence. "Sounds like you're keeping busy."

The voice is tinny, but Harry still recognizes it right away, and a flood of things he'd not-quite forgotten in the weeks since it had become just him and the Doctor. Memories of soft skin and shallow gasps, and all the anger that followed thereafter, a bittersweet cacophony of wonderful-terrible things that hits him all at once.

"Draco," he says.

"Potter," is his businesslike answer. "Is the Doctor in?"

"He's trapped in the swimming pool."

"Again?"

"Yes, pretty sure."

There's a lapse of profoundly uncomfortable silence. Harry has a lot he wants to say, and all of it is jumbled up, knotted in the back of his throat. He forces himself to speak because the only thing worse than speaking is not speaking.

"How is she?" Harry asks at last.

A long, crackling sigh. "About the same."

Harry frowns. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. There's nothing you could have done to change her."

"I know. I just meant I'm sorry that it happened. How are you?"

"About the same."

Harry leans against the console. The cheap plastic of the receiver is cool against the rim of his ear and under his fingertips. "Under the circumstances," he says, "no progress is progress."

"Do you think so?"

"What you went through would have broken other people."

There's another beat of silence. "Put the Doctor on." Draco's voice is pained, like Harry had just insulted him, and Harry is at a loss for words. All he wants to do is talk to him.

"I – right." He runs his tongue along his teeth. "I'll try to see if I can pluck him out of the swimming pool."

"There's a shovel in the third corridor closet if you need it," Draco says, and Harry puts the receiver down on the console, heading into the ship and wondering what it is he said wrong.

"Doctor?" He moves through to the back of the ship, through the narrow, geometric hallways and their spiderwebbing path. "Doctor, it's Draco. I think he wants us to pick him up."

He takes a left turn into the room with the swimming pool, arriving in time to see the Doctor wrench his head out of the thick foam.

"Does he?" the Doctor says, up to his mid-chest in bluish-white foam composite. "That's brilliant!"

"Do you need help getting out?"

"Possibly. But the good news is the spare rift modulator was indeed at the bottom of the swimming pool! Now once we get the troll out of the engine, everything should be fine."

"It's wedged in there pretty well," Harry says. "It might be tough. Hang on, I'll get the shovel."

* * *

"I do not think I need to remind you that westerners are not usually allowed in this temple."

"Your continued patience is, as ever, a light in dark places."

"And we certainly do not appreciate them handling our holy relics."

Holmes turns the horn over in his hands. He is delicate with it, although it is made from sturdy bone. He sits opposite the priest on a reed mat, in one of the smaller, quieter ashrams, often used for prayer and meditation.

"I would not subject this most holy temple to such indignities if I did not think it necessary for its protection."

"You said you found a letter on his person," the priest says. "Did that not tell you anything?"

"Little," he answers. "Any henchman of Moriarty's would be smart enough to reveal minimal information in correspondence. I knew that from the start, but I admit that I'd had hopes to glean more."

"What does he want with the _lingam?_"

"I do not know."

This fact is more distressing than Holmes cares to admit. He has been in Nepal for nearly three months. He dislikes time-consuming cases. After a while, the mind rebels against prolonged exposure to the same data.

"Shortly before he died," Holmes said, "he said that it would be our doom."

The priest frowns, shifts in his seat.

Holmes searches him. Despite the fact that he knows the answer, he asks anyway: "Do you have any idea what he might have meant?"

"No," the priest lies, fairly transparently.

"There are very powerful men who are trying very hard to get a hold of this," Holmes says. "Men who do not concern themselves with the cultural or historic value of things. You can imagine why I am so curious, then, as to why they would try to get their hands on an artifact of Shiva."

"For money," the priest suggests.

"Would it not have been much easier to steal one of the many golden relics within the same ashram?"

"I cannot know the minds of criminals," the priest says. "That is your job, Mr. Holmes."

"You are an intelligent man," Holmes says. "Surely you do not fail to see the gravity of cooperating with me. Moriarty's syndicate threatens not just Nepal, but the entire world. I am trying to _help_ you, as you have helped me, but you must be completely honest!"

"It is nothing," the priest says. "It is a legend. We hold the _lingam_ as sacred for its history, not for…"

Holmes leans forward, placing both hands flat on the reed mat. The priest is hesitating right on the edge of the point, and Holmes feels as though he is pulling teeth. He is about to egg him on when suddenly, from the courtyard out the window and far below, there is a scream.

At once, Holmes is on his feet.

"What was that?" the priest says, but Holmes is already pulling up the robe of his traditional robe and hurrying down the steps of the ashram.

* * *

"Nepal!" the Doctor says.

"Nepal?" Draco echoes.

"Something nice and peaceful to get your feet back in the game!" He is circling the console, flipping up levers and hitting buttons in quick succession. "Just a dip back in!"

"Doctor," Draco says, "I've only been away for three weeks."

"Nepal is _beautiful,_" the Doctor continues as though he hadn't heard. "The mountains, the culture, the architecture – one of my favorite earth countries, if I'm going to be honest, though don't tell England I said that."

"I'll be sure to keep it secret," Draco answers.

Harry takes in a breath and heads to Draco's side, leaning against the rail next to him. "You seem refreshed," he says, putting so much effort into sounding casual and jovial that he was quite sure it sounded fake. "How was France?"

Draco glares at him. Harry grips the railing a little tighter.

"I'm trying to be nice, Malfoy," he says. "Can't you just let me be nice?"

"I'm not inclined to," Malfoy answers tightly.

Harry takes a slow breath. He does not want to get angry at Malfoy, but he feels it rising in his throat anyway.

"Why not?"

"If you have to ask, Potter," Malfoy says, "then you have much larger problems."

He pushes off the railing and walks to the Doctor's side. It takes quite a bit of effort on Harry's part to keep himself from seething with anger. If he wants to make any progress with Malfoy, the cycle of mutual anger has to stop. It might as well stop with him.

If the Doctor had been listening – and Harry knows him well enough to know that he probably was – he does a great job of pretending as though he hadn't.

"Nepal is absolutely gorgeous, but you really want to see it pre-Industrial Era. It's always lovely, but you can really tell before all the smoke and the sulfur and the industry."

The TARDIS jolts to one side. Draco catches himself on the Doctor's shoulder.

"I have missed this," he confesses, smiling.

"Feels good to get back in the saddle, eh? I'll take her in for a silent landing. We wouldn't want anyone in historic Pashupatinath to be startled!"

"Pashupatinath!" Draco says. "Oh, Merlin, that's been on my bucket list for _ages_. Did you know ancient Hindu wizards basically invented the entire branch of transfiguration there?"

"Really!" the Doctor answers, sounding duly impressed.

"Oh, _yes,_" Draco gushes. "I wrote a ten-scroll essay on it for my History of Magic N.E.W.T. – absolutely fascinating!"

Harry had never really noticed before, "You're a bit of a nerd, aren't you, Malfoy?"

Draco glares at him soundly. And Harry's upset and everything, but it's also a little bit funny. He'd never really pinned Malfoy as a nerd. It's sort of cute.

"Well, nice quiet landing. Remember, this is a holy place, so let's be respectful."

"Of course," Draco says flippantly as he heads for the door. "I am the picture of politesse."

He pulls open the door. Harry follows him, and the first thing he hears—

"—killed the one that came before us, so we have to take care when we gut him."

"Well!" Draco says. "That didn't last long!"

Two men, in form-fitting, practical black leathers, spin around. They are ducked behind a bush in the dead of night.

"Planning an assassination in a holy site?" Draco says. "Rude!"

"What—!" says one of them.

"We _just got here!_" the Doctor cries, exasperated, as he heads up from the console. "Can we at least go _ten minutes_ without running into trouble?"

"I guess we should turn them over to whoever's in charge," Harry says.

"This was supposed to be relaxing," the Doctor says. He sounds quite disappointed.

"Relaxing isn't my style, Doctor," Draco answers, producing his wand from his sleeve and pointing it straight out.

But there's a clash of spellwork, a blinding burst of light and sound exploding outward in all directions. When Harry blinks the stains from his eyes, both men in leathers are armed and standing ready to duel.

"Wizards?" Harry says. "Hindu wizard assassins?"

"I'm into it," Draco answers, then fires off a spell.

* * *

Holmes collides with the battle as a dart hits cork. He takes out one with brute force, a flying tackle that hits him in the side, elbow first. He rolls, leaps up, unsheathes his sword; a downward strike is met with a burst of light that Holmes cannot quite explain at first. There are five of them in total, and he has two of them on the ground before he rounds on number three—

—his metal clatters loudly against an invisible force, and he is already ten steps ahead – _down, roll, attack at the knee_ – when there's a voice—

"Whoa!"

_British,_ Holmes's mind supplies at once, and the details come rapid fire before the rebounding force of his sword sends him back, _moneyed, Wiltshire origins, recent personal tragedy, high intelligence, magical._

"Easy, handsome!"

"Get off him!"

_British,_ Holmes notices of the second voice, _Surrey, war veteran, childhood abuse, protective personality, magical._

Holmes spins off the rebound and catches the blow from his wand. He's quite deadly (_law enforcement training_), but even with just a sword Holmes is able to keep him at bay.

"Stop!" says the intelligent, moneyed man recovering from personal tragedy. "Stop, we're on the same side!"

Holmes stops. The protective veteran with a history of childhood abuse and law enforcement training stops, as well, though he does not seem as happy about it.

"He attacked you!"

"He attacked the would-be assassins first," the moneyed one says. "So did we. We can work together!"

"Who sent you?" Holmes demands.

"No one," says the moneyed one, "honest. What's a Brit doing in Nepal?"

"What are two Brits doing in Nepal?" Holmes counters.

"Touché," he counters, smiling handsomely.

"Why is it always _fighting,_" says a third voice, and Holmes's eyes refocus. "Why does it always have to be _fighting?_"

The man who emerges is a contradiction from head to toe. A jacket of English tweed, a shirt of Egyptian cotton, shoes of a leather that Holmes cannot identify – and Holmes has made an extensive study of leather – but what is most alarming are his eyes. Far more than the contradiction of their youthful appearance and aged depths, there is one aspect of them that Holmes cannot quite wrap his head around. Despite standing in a bright pool of lamplight, his pupils are maximally dilated.

"You have come to a dangerous place in a dangerous time," Holmes says. He does not disarm, because the man with the history of childhood abuse has not disarmed, "and your appearance is alarming to say the very least. So answer me, please, and spare no detail – what are a war veteran, an aristocrat, and a man from another world doing in Pashupatinath?"

The aristocrat cants his head to one side.

"Who are you?" the veteran growls. "How do you know that?"

"I did not know," he answers, "I saw. I have quite a few enemies in Britain so forgive me when I demand your answer before proceeding with this conversation."

"My name is Draco Malfoy. The man behind me is the Doctor, and the one with his wand to your throat is Harry Potter. We're just passing through."

"Coincidence, Mr. Malfoy, is something I no longer believe in."

"Behind you!"

It happens so quickly that Holmes does not have the time to react. He is hit with a tackle and goes falling. One of the men Holmes that was unconscious is wrestling him to the ground; Homes wrenches away and kicks him off, though not before his hands find purchase in the folds of his robes, pulling free—

A solid kick lands to Holmes's chest and the wind escapes him all at once. His assailant rolls away, head bloodied, gripping tightly the _lingam_, the polished and jeweled cow horn.

"_Petrificus totalus!_" Harry shouts, but the spell rebounds with a weak, metallic sound. The _lingam_, still gripped tightly in the attacker's hand, begins to glow. It is dark and vicious red, and it spreads down his arm.

The attacker begins to scream.

"Stand back!" the Doctor says, grabbing Harry and pulling him away by the elbow. "Something—"

The screaming gets louder, and Holmes, still winded, watches in spellbound astonishment as the man's flesh begins to melt off his bones like hot wax; skin and muscle and sinew fall away like tallow on the neck of a candle, starting at his hand and spreading downward, and he screams and screams until his chest and lungs melt, until he collapses into a foul-smelling puddle of melted viscera.

The _lingam_ lands on top. It is no longer glowing.

"Holy _fuck_," Draco says loudly.

"What was that?" Harry demands.

"An extreme emission of energy," the Doctor says slowly. "Magical energy. But I've never seen anything quite like that…"

Holmes picks himself up off the ground and slowly moves toward it.

"Don't touch it!" Harry says.

"I've already touched it," Holmes says. "I've held it in my hands and I remain, as you may notice, very much not liquefied."

"Maybe because he's a Muggle?" Draco suggests. "If it's some sort of cursed item, it may not affect Muggles. Then again, I've never seen a curse like that."

Holmes gently plucks the _lingam_ out of the pool of melted flesh. "Holy relic, indeed," he says thoughtfully. "I admit that mysticism is rather out of my purview."

"It's right up our street," Draco says, and Holmes turns back to look at him. "We can help."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Harry interjects. "He nearly killed you, Draco."

"I'm sure he didn't mean it." Draco smiles disarmingly at Holmes, who frowns in return. "What do you say? You could certainly use some magical expertise."

Holmes is silent a moment. "I can read a man's biography off the brim of his hat and his fears from the tip of his fingers," he says, "but the content of his character is so often a mystery to me."

He wishes Watson were here. Holmes could always rely on him for the softer analyses. For a moment – perhaps a moment too long – he finds himself recalling the details of his face, and counting down the days until he can return to London.

"But as I am non-magical, I am forced to draw my expertise from other sources." He breathes, straightens, turns forward. "My name is Sherlock Holmes."

"Shut _up_," Draco says.

"Wait, what?"

"Sherlock Holmes! Blimey, it is about that time period, isn't it?"

"_You're_ Sherlock Holmes?"

Their reactions tell him quite a lot, none of which he has the time to process, as there comes a voice behind him: "What happened?"

He turns, nostrils flared. The head priest of Pashupatinath is standing in at the base of the steps leading up to the ashram, the excess of his robe gripped tightly in one hand, staring in horror at the scene, and Holmes could not blame him.

"My friend," Holmes says to him, "you have quite a bit of explaining to do."

* * *

"This place is beautiful," Draco says, which Harry certainly can't disagree with – between the great pagodas and the immense golden statues, Pashupatinath is one of the most lovely places Harry's ever seen. He rather wishes, however, that Malfoy would stop taking pictures of it on his phone.

"The whole truth this time, my friend," Holmes says to the priest. "I have grown accustomed to mystery on only one side of my cases. Both ends is just too convoluted."

The priest sighs. "I had thought it just a legend," he insists, "but if what you say is true, then we must consider the kernel of truth from which the legend springs."

"What is this relic?" Holmes asks him. "Where are its origins?"

"Right here in Pashupatinath, according to the old story," the priest says. "It is said that Shiva disguised himself as a cow and came to graze in our fields many hundreds of years ago. The other gods were angered that he was so hidden, and when they came down and struggled with him, they broke off his horn and forced him to reveal his true form."

"Shiva?" Harry says. "He's one of the primary deities of Hinduism, isn't he?"

"He is also known as Mahadeva," the priest says, "and he has many forms and faces. This _lingam_, this relic, is considered to be far more than an artifact. According to the legend, the struggle that broke the horn infused it with the essence of _Rudra_."

Harry frowns. "_Rudra?_"

"Destroyer," the priest answers, voice soft. "A face of Shiva commonly associated with storms and the hunt. _Rudra_ is the fearsome and terrible face."

Draco turns, tucking his phone into his vest pocket. "Well, that explains why it melted that assassin. Shiva has a long and storied history of finding people unworthy of things."

"May I?" the Doctor says. Holmes glances briefly to the priest, who nods, and then Holmes delicately hands him the horn. The Doctor takes it carefully and begins to scan the length of it with his sonic screwdriver.

The priest watches in suspicion. "Who is it you said your new friends were?"

"I did not say," Holmes answers. "But you my rest assured that their counsel is necessary – for now, at least."

"It is most certainly the horn of a bull," the Doctor says, "but there appears to be organic matter from a different animal at its core."

Draco peers over his shoulder. "What animal?"

The Doctor scans it in silence for a few moments. "A dragon, I think."

"A _dragon?_" Harry repeats.

"Yes, I think so," the Doctor says. "Either that or a dinosaur, but I'm leaning toward dragon."

"A dragon core?" Draco says, then— "Wait a minute – it's a _wand?_"

The Doctor straightens. "I hadn't thought about it like that," he says, "but now that you mention it…"

The priest stands, alarmed. "That is entirely possible," he says. "This temple has very ancient roots in the magical arts, including wandmaking."

"It's another Elder Wand," Harry says suddenly. "Or considering its age, the Elder Wand is another one of these."

"We have no precise records of when this _lingam_ first appeared in Pashupatinath," the priest says, "but we do have a record of one of the temple Seers divining its future many years ago."

"Let us see it, then," Holmes says, and the priest nods, and they move into the lower levels of the ashram.

"You know, Mr. Holmes," Draco says as they walk, "for a Muggle, you're handling all of this talk of sorcery very well."

"There is no way to 'handle' the truth, Mr. Malfoy," Holmes answers. "The truth does not require handling. It simply is, whether or not those with sentience choose to acknowledge it. Besides, I discovered magical London on my own when I was eight."

"_Merlin,_ I had such a huge crush on you growing up," Draco blurts out, and Harry's back straightens. "And now I remember _why_."

"Don't flirt with Sherlock Holmes, Malfoy!"

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your futuristic parlance," Holmes says to Draco.

"I read all of Dr. Watson's books in secret to keep my parents finding out," Draco says. "I knew if they discovered that I was reading Muggle books they would have punished me severely. But I just couldn't stop. You were such a compelling figure."

Holmes quirks an eyebrow, and the ghost of a smirk appears on his face. "Perhaps you should take your friend's advice, Mr. Malfoy," Holmes says, "and avoid flirting with me."

"I never listen to anything Potter says on principle."

"Hey!"

"Besides," Draco continues, smiling coquettishly, "I would _never_ pass up the opportunity to flirt with the Great Detective. How do you feel about owning a mobile phone?"

"Malfoy, you can't just keep dropping smart phones off throughout time and space just because _you_ want to sext famous historical figures!"

"Watch me do exactly that, Potter!"

"This is the records room," the priest says, either unaware of or graciously ignoring the argument behind him. The room sits deep beneath the ashram, dusty and poorly-lit, a long hallway with both sides dominated by cubby holes stocked with tightly-rolled scrolls. "A combination of budgets, correspondences, notes, and prophecies dating back to the founding of the temple."

The priest has to illuminate his wand with a quick _lumos_ to see when they get deeper into the hall.

"I love a good records room," the Doctor says fondly.

The priest slows, then stops in front of one cubbyhole that looks rather like the rest. He reaches out for it—

"Wait," Holmes says. "Do you see that?"

Harry leans forward. "I don't see anything."

"The lines in the dust," Holmes says, gesturing to the cubby hole the priest is reaching for. "Someone has been here already and looked at this prophecy."

"This is not a room frequently used," the priest says gravely.

"I saw," Holmes answers. "I find it highly likely that whoever sent those assassins here already knows the contents of that prophecy."

"That is exactly as sexy as I remember it being," Draco says, and Harry bristles even further. He is not sure why this makes him so angry, but it does, and he wants it to stop.

The priest plucks the scroll out from the cubby hole and reads over it by the blue-silver light of his wand.

"The Seer writes of a vessel," the priest says.

"A vessel?" the Doctor echoes.

"An ideal conduit for the power of the _lingam,_" he continues, "who will bring an avatar of Shiva to the mortal world. The writing is somewhat garbled… the word 'energy' is written several times, and _Rudra-Siva_."

"Sorry," Harry says, "_Rudra-Siva?_"

"It's an expression of one of the dualities of Shiva," the priest says. "_Rudra_, the destroyer, and _Siva_, the benefactor. Shiva embodies such opposite extremes."

"It is clear, then," Holmes says, "that Moriarty's hand in Nepal thinks himself this vessel, that he can use this _lingam_ for his own purposes."

"They are mad if they honestly think they can wield any control over an avatar of Shiva," the priest says.

"Mad? No," Holmes says, "not mad. There is no madness in lust for power. It is the purest motivator of all."

"The Seer mentions the phase of the moon when the power of the _lingam_ is first manifested," the priest says. "The first gibbous moon of spring."

"When's that?" Draco asks.

The priest's mouth forms a hard line. He slowly rolls the scroll back up.

"Tomorrow."

* * *

Pashupatinath is evacuated the next morning.

The head priest sends all the others into Kathmandu. Draco cannot imagine what it is he says to them to make them obey so readily, but whatever it is, it works. By evening the following day, the great temple is empty, saturated with an eerie stillness that is punctuated only by the thrumming of katydids.

Draco exits the TARDIS before nightfall. Halfway up the steps of the great ashram, he finds Holmes, sitting quietly on the steps. He has a cigarette dangling between his lips and is patting himself down.

"I'll give you a light if you agree to share," Draco says.

Holmes glances up at him. "You don't smoke," he says. "Not for at least ten years."

"Eight," Draco corrects. "I suppose I shouldn't ask how you knew."

"Teeth," he says, which of course does not clarify anything, but Draco sits down beside him all the same and flicks his wand so the tip glows white-hot. Holmes makes an appreciative sound as Draco uses it to light the tip of his cigarette. "It is my last one."

"We'll manage, I'm sure."

Holmes takes a long drag. "Creature comforts," he says upon exhale. "I took with me all of my prized Egyptian cigarettes before I left London. I've been saving them religiously. I told myself I would have enough to last the length of my absence, but I suppose that was rather optimistic."

"Your departure," Draco says. Holmes passes him the cigarette. "So you're in the middle of the Great Hiatus."

"I beg your pardon?"

"When you faked your death," he continues. "I suppose I should have known, if you're in Nepal taking out Moriarty's henchmen. Are they magical, then, this Nepali ringleader?"

"Apparently," Holmes answers.

Draco pauses. "Was Moriarty a wizard?"

Holmes shakes his head. "No, not Moriarty. Though he often worked with them – a luxury I never received, working so closely with Watson."

Draco takes a drag of his own from the cigarette. The tobacco is rich and woody, and he is reminded of why it was so difficult to quit.

"The Great Hiatus," Holmes repeats contemplatively. "I find myself rather bemused at the fact that Watson's little stories are so canonized."

Draco smiles. He wants to tell him all about Jeremy Brett and Benedict Cumberbatch and the thousands of adaptations – most of which he only let himself indulge in after the War, when he no longer had any fear of disappointing his parents – but he thinks that might be in poor taste.

"The Doctor is finished analyzing the horn," Draco says, passing the cigarette back.

"Hm?"

"It is definitely a wand," Draco says. "And the Doctor described it as also being some sort of power modulator. It's waiting for some form of energy – a certain type of magical signature, I'm guessing – before it is activated."

"This is all rather outside my usual area," Holmes admits.

"Well, for what it's worth, it hasn't at all hindered your mind."

"Careful, Mr. Malfoy," Holmes says, grinning, "your friend will get jealous."

Draco rolls his eyes as Holmes exhales a pale blue smoke ring. "Harry Potter is not jealous," he says, "he's just a dick."

"No," Holmes says, "he is most certainly jealous. I make little study of the softer emotions, but jealousy I can spot from ten miles when the wind's fair."

Draco frowns. "He has nothing to be jealous of."

"Apparently Mr. Potter disagrees," Holmes says. "I see the way he looks at you when you're not watching."

"He just misses the sex," Draco mutters, and the realization hurts more than he thought it would. "He doesn't actually like me. He doesn't even respect me."

Holmes does not answer, only passes the cigarette back wordlessly.

Draco feels like he has to change the subject or else he'll give in to the low ache in his heart.

"Besides," he says brusquely, fishing out a new iPhone from his jacket, "since I began traveling with the Doctor, I've taken to collecting correspondents." He hands the phone to Holmes with a smile.

Holmes spends about eight seconds examining the phone – the front, the back, the sides. He figures out how to turn it on before ten seconds, and how to unlock it before fifteen. Draco watches, beaming.

"Merlin, that should not be so attractive."

"Communication device," Holmes mutters to himself. "Obvious. Designed to be portable. Multipurpose…" He holds the screen up to a better angle. "What is a Google?"

"It's not just every man from the mid-nineteenth century who can figure out the principle uses of a smart phone in under a minute," Draco says. "Let me show you how to text. You'll _love_ Google."

"Malfoy."

And just like that, his mood sours. He looks up and glares at Potter, who is glaring right back at him as he comes up the steps of the ashram.

"A word?" he asks, voice tight.

"Not if I can avoid it," Malfoy answers tightly.

"A _word_, Malfoy," Harry repeats, and Draco can tell by the tone of voice that there's not much room for argument.

"My apologies, Mr. Holmes," Draco says, handing him back his cigarette. "I'll be back in a moment."

Holmes isn't listening. He seems to be figuring out the calculator app in record time.

Draco follows Harry back down the steps.

"Would it absolutely kill you not to shamelessly flirt with everyone we come across?" Harry asks.

"Yes," Draco answers flippantly.

Draco doesn't need to see Harry's face to know he's grinding his teeth. "I've been trying to be nice about this, Malfoy, because you _have_ had a very hard month, but can we _please_ talk about the fact that _we had sex?_"

Draco's nostrils flare. "Why do we need to talk about it?"

"Because _we had sex,_" Harry says, perhaps a bit too loudly, though to his credit he quickly realizes it and self-corrects. "Because we had sex, Malfoy, and we didn't talk about it and we should."

"Talking about it seems redundant at this point," Draco says, and his own voice is rising. "We were both in a vulnerable position emotionally, we were angry, and in the heat of the anger and frustration and emotional catharsis, we had sex. Nothing _meaningful_ has changed, apart from that one time I had your cock inside of me."

"Nothing _meaningful has changed?_" Harry is staring at him like he can't quite believe his ears.

"Apparently not, because here we are still arguing like we're thirteen!" Draco shouts at him. "I still think you're a prig, you still don't like me!"

"You think I don't like you?" Harry says.

"Between the shouting, the constant arguments, the aggressive hate-sex, yeah, I sort of got that impression!"

Harry sets his face.

"I don't dislike you," Harry says with a concentrated effort at calm.

"Well, I'm glad that's your baseline for having sex with someone," Draco snaps at him, "but my standards usually require that someone actually respect me before I go to bed with them. Or at least I thought they did!"

Harry reels back. Draco watches his expression with tightly focused scrutiny, because some part of him, perhaps, is still hideously desperate for Potter's approval.

"I—" he falters, "I don't…"

"Then what, Potter?" Draco demands. "What is it you feel about me? Tell me, please, because I've never felt anything but anger and contempt from you."

Harry stares at him, and the silence hurts more than Draco imagined it would.

"Until you can answer that question," Draco says, "forgive me for avoiding a very painful subject."

"_Draco!_" comes the Doctor's voice. "_Harry! Holmes!_"

Draco takes in a sharp breath.

"She's here."

* * *

Or more accurately, _they're_ here, because when they make it to the main gates of Pashupatinath, they see a crowd of some fifty men , all of them varying degrees of armed.

"I do so appreciate a polite criminal," Holmes says as he approaches the gate. There is a woman standing just on the opposite side, her hands on her hips and her wand securely holstered on her arm. Her hair is tied back and her army stands ready. "Ms. Nishtha, I presume!"

"Mr. Holmes," Nishtha answers. "This is a meeting long overdue. I see you already evacuated the temple."

"And I see you've already brought your small army."

"There is still a chance to make this easy," she says.

Holmes half-smiles. "No," he says, "there isn't."

Nishtha pauses, then laughs. "No," she agrees, "I suppose not. There is no avoiding destiny, and the _lingam_ was always destined for my hand."

"I suppose I must politely disagree," Holmes says.

"It's a good thing your opinion has no meaning to me."

Nishtha snaps, and all at once her army runs forward, loping up to and scaling the tall walls surrounding the temple.

"Boys," Holmes says evenly, and with two quick movements of their wands, Draco and Harry activate the magical traps. They can't see it work, as they're on the far side of the walls, but they can hear the screaming, which is indication enough. "I hope you weren't expecting this to be easy, Ms. Nishtha."

"I'm insulted at the assumption," Nishtha answers, before casting a hex so abrupt and so powerful that not only do the gates go flying open but all four of them on the other side go flying back several feet.

Any henchman of Moriarty's is wont to be skilled and powerful, but they are still taken by surprise. The fight is sudden and brutal, and even though it's one on four (or more accurately, one on three, as the Doctor is armed only with a screwdriver), she makes significant headway into the temple. Curses are slung, knives thrown, shields flash.

A few of the army manage to avoid the traps and make it over the wall and join the fray. Draco has some experience in dueling, but they are soon swamped.

"Doctor!" Harry shouts. "Get back to the TARDIS!"

As the Doctor scurries off toward it, Holmes goes flying, and from the corner of his eye, Draco sees the horn, the _lingam_, goes flying from his hand.

Draco looks away from it and notices that Nishtha has seen it at the same moment. Before he can talk himself out of it, he runs toward it; so does she. Draco dives for it, closes his hand around it—

—and there is an explosion of light and color, blinding, deafening. Nishtha is thrown backwards as though she is paper and Draco is a storm. Draco feels heat in him, starting in his core, and for an instant he wonders if he will melt like candle wax—

But he is not melting. There is something growing inside of him, until quite suddenly it is outside of him, exploding out from every pore and overtaking him.

"Doctor—" he chokes, but his vision begins to dim.

"Draco!" It's Harry's voice. "_Draco!_"

* * *

For quite some time, Harry is not sure what he's seeing. What starts as light and energy begins to warp and twist into a shape – red skin, three eyes, hulking, humanlike but somehow unmistakably inhuman, with a crown of a crescent moon.

"No!" Nishtha screams. "_No!_ That is not possible!"

The figure is not Draco, but it seems to be growing out of Draco, controlling him like a marionette as it grows larger and larger, impossibly tall.

"_You cannot be the vessel!_" Nishtha continues to scream. "_You cannot be the vessel! The destiny was mine! It was_—"

Her words stop. Harry turns in time to see her flesh melting away from her bones.

"Draco," Harry says. "Draco's the vessel? How—?"

The figure growing out of him – the Avatar of Shiva, Harry can only assume – is growing taller each minute, semitransluscent and terrible.

"We must find safety," Holmes says, grabbing Harry by the arm.

"No!" Harry says. "No, Draco's – I can't—!"

"_If we stay, the Avatar will kill us!_" Holmes says. "_Go!_"

Harry is pulled, forcefully, and together they go stumbling through the narrow streets of Pashupatinath. Harry's head is spinning. He can hear a great, thunderous roar behind them.

The TARDIS is waiting behind an ashram, door standing open. Harry and Holmes go crashing through.

"We can't—" Harry says, lost for breath, "—I have to go back out there! Draco's still there, he's—"

The Doctor comes stumbling around the console. "It's _Draco?_"

"That was a godlike avatar growing out of him," Holmes says as he catches his breath and slams the TARDIS door.

"How could a thousand-year-old relic be waiting for _Draco Malfoy's_ magical signature?" the Doctor says.

"We have to go get him!" Harry says, hurrying over to grab the Doctor. "We have to stop him! If we pull it from his hands—"

"_Shut up!_" Holmes shouts, and when Harry turns, he has his fingers pressed to his temples. "Shut up, I need to think!"

"I can't leave him out there," Harry says. He feels delirious, and all that's going through his head is _Draco, Draco, Draco,_ "I can't—"

"The priest said _Rudra-Siva,_" Holmes says suddenly.

"What?" the Doctor says.

"_Rudra-Siva,_" Holmes repeats impatiently. "The embodied contradiction of destruction and benefaction – but that avatar out there is only destruction! We should have both, but we have only one. _Why?_" He makes an agonized sound, pushes both hands through his hair. "_This is out of my area!_"

"I don't care why!" Harry says. "I have to go out there—!" He struggles toward the door.

_BOOM!_ The TARDIS trembles from the force of whatever great destruction is being wrought outside.

"Duality!" the Doctor says suddenly. "The _lingam_ was a dual-pronged power modulator wrapped up in a wand, it needs _two_ sources!"

Harry has no idea what he means, but Holmes looks up, eyes alight.

"Duality," Holmes echoes. "Yes – it's out of balance, destruction and benefaction – it needs—"

"A second energy source!" the Doctor says. "Harry!"

_BOOM!_ Closer, this time.

"Harry," the Doctor says, "your magical energy reacts with Draco's – I think it _always_ has! If you go out there—"

Harry does not need to hear the rest. He takes off in a run out of the TARDIS, breaking into a dead sprint, and all that is on his mind is _Draco, Draco, Draco_. He can help, he _must_ help.

The avatar is as tall as the sky, an immense and terrible red-skinned figure staining the sky. One of the ashrams is already crushed to debris, and the figure keeps walking.

"_Harry!_"

The TARDIS is sailing along beside him as he runs. Harry can see the Doctor piloting frantically as Holmes half hangs out the door.

"If you can get your hand on the horn—" Holmes begins.

"_I'll distract him!_" the Doctor chimes in, and the TARDIS goes soaring into the sky.

Harry scrambles after the path of destruction, following immense footsteps carved into debris. The immense, rumbling footsteps slow to a stop – whatever the Doctor is distracting it with seems to be working – and Harry can see him—

—he can see him, skin aglow, _vibrating_ with magical energy stronger than Harry's ever seen, directly beneath the behemoth of an avatar, brandishing the _lingam_ like it was a wand—

"Draco!"

He does not turn, but Harry goes flying into him anyway, grabbing him from behind. Draco does not even flinch.

"It's okay—" he gasps into Draco's ear, "—it's okay, hang on—"

Draco's skin is hot beneath his fingertips; he grabs at his wrist and gropes downward, searching—

* * *

"… do not claim to know the meaning of this sign, but after everything I witnessed, I can only call it a miracle."

Harry recognizes the voice – the head priest of Pashupatinath. His mind struggles to remember—

"I dislike the term," answers another voice, and it is most certainly Sherlock Holmes. "Even after everything. The term miracle implies a defiance of rational explanation. I am sure there is an explanation, just one that we are perhaps not wont to know."

Harry sits up – his back is sore. Where's Draco?

"Draco—" he rasps.

"Harry!"

It's the Doctor this time. He swoops down in front of him – he is laying on a plain mat in one of the ashrams, he is sure – and he is beaming at Harry.

"_Well done!_" he says. "I admit our plan was kind of a longshot, but _boy_ did it work! Your energies cancelled each other out within the modulator!"

"More relevantly," Holmes says, coming up behind the Doctor, "you completed the duality. You turned an avatar of _Rudra_ into an avatar of _Rudra-Siva_."

"Look," the elder priest says, face alight. He gestures to the far end of the room. Harry's eyes take a moment to adjust. Several priests are crowded around a snowy white calf as it is bottle fed. "This was all that remained. The true avatar of Shiva; a blessing."

"Where's Draco?" Harry asks, because it's all well and good that everyone made it out, but—

"He's fine," the Doctor says. "He's right behind you."

Harry wrenches around. Draco is asleep – or unconscious, perhaps; it's not easy to tell – beside him on the mat, and Harry nearly falls apart at the sight of it.

"Thank God," he said. "I thought…"

"There is something unique about you two," Holmes remarks.

"Yes," the Doctor says, "unique is a good term for it. I wish I knew what it was."

Harry finds that he does not care. Draco is safe beside him, and he finds that very little else matters.

And though he feels happy, he finds that he also feels vulnerable. He recalls Draco's question – _what is it you feel about me?_ – and somehow he has less of an answer than before.


	9. Dread Singer

He recalls being younger, being an untested leader of his tribe, staring down the long shadow his father cast. He recalls coming to Orgrimmar and feeling a sense of awe. The mighty halls carved from the living rock, the great pillars of bone and metal and stone, the rush of the crowds, the heat of the forges. He remembers seeing the city and thinking, _yes, this is what I want for my people, this is their destiny_.

So many years later, and he feels as though his whole life has changed. He has found purpose and strength and power over far more than just his inheritance. He is carving a legacy that, he knows, would make his father proud.

And yet the walls of Grommash Hold, somewhere along the lines, began to feel less like a symbol of his success and more like a prison.

Trolls, he thinks, are not meant for such tombs. He yearns for sun and water and jungle. He yearns for open air and salty wind off the sea.

More relevantly, he yearns for the days when all the Horde did not look to him for guidance and strength. He yearns for the days when his life retained some measure of simplicity.

"Warchief."

He lifts his head from the map of Alterac. It feels heavy from smoke, and his eyes burn in protest of the sudden light that blankets his throne.

It's Eitrigg, panting, bracing one hand against the wall as though to hold himself steady.

"Something's wrong. You need to see this."

He glances briefly at the Frostwolf emissary, who bows shallowly in deference. He rises to his feet, fighting the stiffness of so many hours without moving, and follows Eitrigg out of Grommash Hold.

"A ship just came to port," Eitrigg says, before he can even ask if he needs to sit a while and rest his aging legs. His voice is harried and frantic. "The usual shipment of Saronite from Northrend."

"What was wrong wit' et?"

"You need to see it for yourself, Vol'jin."

It's not in Eitrigg's nature to be so frenzied, nor to use his given name but in matters of acute stress, so before they step into the streets of Orgrimmar, Vol'jin snatches his glaive from the rack by the door of Grommash Hold.

Together they part the crowds of Orgrimmar as the river current parts reeds. Traders and vendors and passers-by scurry from their path, and guards salute, and young children tug on their mothers' skirts and ask who they are. All over again, Vol'jin misses the solitude and familiarity of the Echo Isles.

They exit through the gates of Orgrimmar and turn east. The ocean is nearly a half-league away, but Vol'jin can see it from the gate – a pillar of smoke rising off the water, a broken ship's mast, the subdued muttering of alarm.

"What in de Loa's name—"

"That is what sailed in to port instead of the shipment of Saronite," Eitrigg says. The Durotar heat is oppressive, and he mops at the brownish-green skin of his forehead with the soft cuff of his gauntlet. "A burning vessel, half-broken, barely floating."

"Was it caught in de Maelstrom?" Vol'jin asks, hurrying his pace.

"No, Warchief," Eitrigg says, "it was bound out of the Borean Tundra; it went nowhere near the Maelstrom."

There suddenly comes a great and throaty scream. Vol'jin grips his his glaive all the tighter and takes off in a sprint, loping over the rough sands toward the port. Eitrigg struggles to keep up.

When he makes it to the dock, there are several orcs holding back a wounded, thrashing troll.

"Hold him down!" one of them shouts. "_Hold him down!_"

The troll is shouting in Zandali, garbled and almost incomprehensible, but Vol'jin can make out bits and pieces of it – _release me_ – _she is calling to me_ – _I'll rip your throat_. When his feet hit the dock, the guards all look to him, attempt to salute, and are subsequently forced to tackle the troll a second time.

"What's wrong wit' 'im?" Vol'jin demands of the guards.

"He keeps – he keeps trying to throw himself into the water!" one guard answers.

"T'row 'imself in de water? Why didn't he do dat when 'e was still on board?"

"He was tied to the mast, Warchief," says another guard as she pins the troll's arm to the dock. "Or what was left of it. We untied him as soon as we could, but then he started this."

"Tied to de mast?" Vol'jin does not like this. He moves forward and grabs a fistful of the troll's hair – rough and matted and fuschia and strung with beads. "Oy! Jor Warchief is talkin' to ya! What'chu want in de water?"

The troll barely seems to acknowledge his presence. He howls something incomprehensible in Zandali, something like _get to her_, though it's not easy to tell.

"I think we need to tie him up again!" a third guard says as she struggles to hold his shoulder down.

"Don't bodda," Vol'jin says, frowning. He gestures dismissively with his hand and, with a sharp and clear burst of voodoo, the troll drops unconscious. The orcish guards, unused to displays of troll magic, all seem to recoil at once.

"What are your orders, Warchief?" Eitrigg says. He is still panting.

Vol'jin eyes the now-unconscious troll, sprawled out on the aged, sea-rotten wood. Then he looks up to the ship – or what's left of it – fractured and smoldering on the water as a team of goblins struggle to put out the fires.

He releases a long breath through his nose.

"Take dis one into Grommash Hold," he says, gesturing to the troll. "Get Gadrin from Sen'jin Village; I'll be needin' one of 'is sedatives when I interrogate 'im."

Eitrigg barks the order at a nearby grunt, who scrambles toward the stables.

"Get a team of engineers down here to inspect the de damage," Vol'jin continues, gesturing toward the ship. "And ready anudda ship. I want ta trace de path dis ship took, all de way back to Borean Tundra if necessary, an' find—"

"_Orgrim's fist!_" someone shouts, and Vol'jin spins on a heel.

For a moment, he does not see anything – until he does.

A great fireball streaking down from the heavens, tumbling in midair. It's hard to make the shape of it out, but Vol'jin can just pick out a bluish color through the flames. It falls and falls and falls until it crashes into the ocean several leagues away.

Vol'jin stares at the horizon behind which the fireball has disappeared. He cannot imagine that these two impossible things are unrelated. Coincidence is a thing Vol'jin does not and has never believed in.

"What…" Eitrigg breathes.

"On second t'ought," Vol'jin says, "get dat ship first. An' let's get someone else to interrogate de troll."

* * *

Harry watches Malfoy. He tries to be subtle, but subtle has never really been his forte.

He watches Malfoy and he thinks. He thinks about many things, but mostly he thinks about pained gray eyes staring up at him, the soft and tragic question – _what is it you feel about me?_

It rattles around in Harry's head. Why is this question so hard to answer? Why does he get a different answer from his head, his heart, his instinct? Malfoy enrages him whenever they speak too long. Malfoy lights his blood on fire when they are close enough for Harry to remember the sensations of his body. Malfoy impresses him with his intellect and courage, and drives him mad with his sarcasm and endless flirting. And somehow, in spite of the tangled mess of emotions that Malfoy rips out of him, leaping into death for him is the most natural response in the world for Harry.

He can't answer Malfoy's question because any time he comes up with an answer, three conflicting emotions crop up.

Harry does not like it, but trying to talk about it would only make it worse.

So instead, he just watches.

"Well, I mean, you _can_ trust Wikipedia," Draco says into the phone, "I mean _generally_ you can, but anyone can edit it."

Someone answers. Harry's pretty sure it's Holmes.

"Well, this is the Internet, Sherlock, academic rigor isn't one of its strong suits. Have you checked out YouTube yet?"

Harry blows a long breath out through his nose. He is endlessly frustrated by Draco's insistence on threatening space and time by handing out iPhones to whoever he finds particularly interesting or worth flirting with. He wishes the Doctor was more concerned, but he isn't – likely because he's violated the time flow far more egregiously than Draco ever has.

"I mean, you can find videos of people playing you arguing with people playing Watson. That might interest you."

There's another response.

"It's a – it's like a picture that can move? Look, just go to YouTube, you'll figure it out, I promise."

"Boys," the Doctor says.

"Also, when you get to YouTube, you should look up the Discovery Channel, they should be able to catch you up on the history you missed up until the invention of the smart phone—"

"Boys," the Doctor says again more loudly. "We have a problem."

"Call you back, love," Draco says, and he hangs up. Harry tries, somewhat unsuccessfully, not to bristle at the term of endearment. "Doctor?"

"Something's wrong with the TARDIS," he says. "It's been so _fussy_ lately."

Draco heads to his side. Harry pushes off the railing and takes the other.

"It's like it's caught inside a tractor beam," he says. "The engines are churning, but it's not going anywhere."

"So what has a tractor beam?" Draco asks.

"That can tow a _TARDIS?_ Nothing," he answers. "There's no such thing as a tractor beam that can keep something _temporally_ stationary."

"Except for this one doing that exact thing right now, apparently," Harry says.

"It's not—" the Doctor says, but all conversation stops when the TARDIS suddenly rocks to one side. They all go collapsing on top of each other on the floor of the console room. The TARDIS engines whine and groan, and the blue emergency floodlight comes on.

"No, no, no!" The Doctor scrambles to his feet. "Stop it! Stop!"

He begins frantically pulling at levers and hitting buttons. It doesn't seem to work, because the TARDIS rocks again, this time to the other side. Harry manages to keep himself from falling over a second time with a firm grip on the edge of the console.

"Look, Doctor," Draco says, "maybe we should just let this happen, anything working this hard at capturing us is bound to at least be interesting!"

"And dangerous!"

"When was the last time we went somewhere that _wasn't_ dangerous?" Draco asks, but before the Doctor can answer, the TARDIS completely upends, and they all drop toward the ceiling.

* * *

"I don't think you should have come," Eitrigg tells him.

"As much as I value jor council, Eitrigg," Vol'jin says, "et is not jor place ta tell de Warchief anyt'ing."

"But it is my place to advise you," Eitrigg says. "And my advice is that your days of reckless abandon are over."

"Dis is not reckless abandon," Vol'jin says. "Dis is investigating a dangerous situation very close ta Orgrimmar."

Eitrigg's wide nostrils flare. "I have known you for many years, Vol'jin. You are the most patient troll and the most patient _person_ I have ever met. Forgive me for finding this… strange."

Vol'jin takes in a deep breath and doesn't answer. He thinks that it is best, perhaps, not to answer.

The _Stormbreaker_ is not as appointed as its goblin crew obviously want it to be for the Warchief of the Horde; it's a plain and spartan ship, with a great red sail bearing the Horde sigil. It glides along the coast of coast of Durotar, a deep blue ocean muttering softly against the red stone cliff.

"Hold!" calls the goblin perched on the crow's nest, and Vol'jin turns away from Eitrigg. "Slow, weigh anchor!"

"I t'ink we've found et," Vol'jin says, rising to his feet, hauling his glaive over his back, and setting off toward the bow of the ship.

The first thing he sees is the pillar of smoke. It's rising up off the shore (such that it is; it's little more than a rocky outcropping and the mouth of a cave), a great, blue box half-buried in the sand.

"What _is_ that?" Eitrigg says beside him.

"I can't say," Vol'jin answers, "but what I can say is dat der's some bad energy here. A vibration…" He can't quite make out all the strange and intertwining resonances, but he does know that there's nothing good in it.

"Warchief," says a guard behind him, "let me go in first."

"Ain't no one goin' anywhere alone," Vol'jin says. "Not wit' dis darkness on de air. Lower a boat for shore. Eitrigg, wit' me."

As they approach in the rowboat, the smell of smoke gets thicker, and Vol'jin does not feel comfortable, even with his glaive in his hand and two well-armored Orgrimmar guards at his back. When they run ashore, he climbs out, salt water lapping at his bare feet.

He can see the great blue box with more clarity. It's an oblong shape, knocked over on its side, and the smoke seems to be billowing out from an open door.

Vol'jin nods to one of the guards, who inches forward, her axe drawn, and peers slowly over the edge of the door.

She stares in thunderstruck silence.

"Guard," Eitrigg growls, "report."

"I—" she stammers back. "It's – I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing, sir. It seems – the box, it's like it's – it's bigger on the inside."

"What? That's not possible. Your eyes are fooling you."

Vol'jin is wise enough to know that just because he doesn't understand it doesn't mean it's impossible, but all he says is, "Let me."

The guard steps away, and Vol'jin takes her spot, looking down over the top of the open door.

"Well, Loa's breath," he says, because, quite as the guard described, he sees a massive cavern of light and shadow through the smoke. "Dat's not somet'in' ju see every day—"

And then there is a hand on his wrist – small and pale, but strong – and every hunter's instinct in him reacts all at once. He pulls, and he throws, and he pins whoever grabbed him down onto the sand, and the tip of his glaive is pressed into its throat before he can even make out the details of his face.

"Well! Hello to you, too!"

"_Alliance!_" one of the guards thunders.

It's only when Vol'jin's instincts quiet that he can actually see him. He's human, pale, blonde, and small – though Vol'jin has never been the best judge of size among humans, they all look like children to a troll – with bright eyes and clothes that Vol'jin has never seen before. The first thing that occurs to him—

"'Ow do ju speak Orcish?"

"Well," the human answers, "the short answer is I don't."

"_Draco!_" comes a second voice from the felled blue box. "_Is there anything you can lower down?_"

"Don't answer dem," Vol'jin warns him, "or I'll cut jor throat."

"Noted," the human, Draco, answers. "Though there's really no need for violence."

Eitrigg summons down another four guards from the _Stormbreaker _with a high-pitched whistle, and Vol'jin can hear the sounds of them scrambling on the deck.

"What is dis device?" Vol'jin demands, nodding sharply to the box. "More Gnomish technology?"

"Not even a little bit," Draco answers.

"Are ju wit' SI-7?"

"Not even sure what that is."

"_Draco, not all of us have your freakishly long legs!_" the voice shouts. "_We can't make that jump you did!_"

"We don't mean you any harm," Draco says, and he's smiling with quite a bit of sincerity, given the fact that Vol'jin's glaive is still pressed against his throat. "We didn't even really mean to come here. We crashed."

"Crashed," Vol'jin repeats. It seems unbelievable, but then, he's seen far stranger things in his time.

"My name is Draco Malfoy," says Draco Malfoy. "And you are?"

Vol'jin narrows his eyes. That, more than anything, tells Vol'jin that he is not a member of the enemy Alliance. Even the Alliance would be able to recognize the Warchief of the Horde.

"How dare you!" one of the guards behind him says. "You insult the Warchief with your feigned ignorance!"

"Easy," Vol'jin says. "Der is no insolence here. I can smell a lie on a human's breath from ten miles when de wind is fair."

He removes the glaive from his throat, releases his hold on his shoulder, and straightens to his full composure. Draco lies sprawled on the sand for a moment before he slowly picks himself up, mindful of the guards.

"I don't mean to be presumptuous," he says, "but my friends are trapped down there and the ship is filling with smoke."

"Get a rope," Vol'jin says to Eitrigg, who echoes the command back to the boat. "Ju'll forgive me, Draco Malfoy, for not entirely trusting ju yet. What is et ju did to de cargo ship?"

"Apologies, Warchief," Draco says, "but I'm not sure what cargo ship you mean."

"Ju tryin'a tell me dat ju had nothin' to do wit' de broken ship and de half-mad sailor."

"No," Draco says. "Well, I mean, probably not. The TARDIS is sort of complicated and one time it accidentally destroyed a neutron star, but I don't think we did anything to any cargo ships or sailors. We were in dire straits when we crashed; we _couldn't_ do anything."

One guard lowers a rope through the door of the blue box – the TARDIS, Vol'jin can only suppose – while the others stand ready with their axes.

"There's no need for that," Draco assures him, "we're not going to hurt you."

"Ju are less den ten leagues from Orgrimmar," Vol'jin tells him. "We cannot take dat risk."

"Warchief…"

Just as the guards lower the rope down, Vol'jin hears a fel voice on the air. When he lifts his head, a gust of wind rolls off the ocean, and the calm waves start to unsettle. Vol'jin can sense the disturbance as though it were staring him in the face; dark and deep and low, soundless but strangely melodic – and drawing closer.

He has the time to draw his glaive, but not the time to get into any proper fighting stance – _crash!_ The water seems to explode before their eyes, a great fountain of white and blue.

What emerges is a naga – or at least, it looks rather like a naga. It certainly has the anatomy of one, but it is several stories too large, massive and hulking, and burning with a strange, ethereal black flame.

Moreover, it does not feel like a naga, and Vol'jin has killed more than his fair share, enough to know. It is white-hot with an energy that he cannot name.

It releases a long, low scream – it vibrates right through his bones with a painful intensity. All at once, an army of smaller naga begin to rise out of the ocean. They are also burning black with strange energy.

"_Guards!_" Eitrigg yells. "_Go! Go! Go! Protect the Warchief!_"

"Merlin's tits!" Draco says behind him. "What is _that!_"

Vol'jin spins his glaive once in his hand. As the small platoon of guards go rushing out into the shallows, axes drawn, Vol'jin focuses his strength into his hand.

The largest naga lunges forward through the fray, diving toward Vol'jin and Draco standing on the shore, and as the screaming continues, Vol'jin leaps, and slashes, and dark magic explodes out of him—

—and it has been so long since he's really been in a fight that he finds that he's rather underestimated his own ability. The naga around them are turned to vapor, and the great behemoth in the middle shrieks as it dissolves into nothingness.

Vol'jin can still feel the voodoo hot and pulsing on his fingertips and in his throat. The ocean is darkly stained with naga blood. He crouches down and picks up one of their spears, floating abandoned in the water.

"Holy _shit_ that was badass," Draco says, and Vol'jin turns around. Two other humans are just starting to climb up out of the overturned ship. "You need to teach me how to do that."

Vol'jin smirks. "We goin' back ta Orgrimmar," he says.

* * *

Draco had thought that he'd been desensitized to strange creatures long ago. It's one of those things you just get used to, traveling with the Doctor. Space slugs, talking octopuses, sentient plants – they were all things one learned to take in stride.

But Draco had _never_ seen anyone or anything quite like the Warchief Vol'jin.

For a start, he was _massive_, at least eight feet tall when he wasn't hunched over, with a shock of bright red hair and pale blue skin. Broad shoulders, long limbs, adorned in leathers and feathers and bones, his blue skin a web of intricate tattoos. He was tribal and fearsome and impressive.

And maybe Draco was crazy, but he thought him a little bit sexy. His type wasn't normally eight-foot-tall and blue-skinned, but hey, he wore the look well.

"Love what you've done with the place," Draco says. "This is Orgrimmar, you said?"

"You are very chatty for a prisoner," the orc Eitrigg says (orcs were a bit shorter than trolls, though they were still massive – green-skinned, dark-haired, built like a brick house).

"Did you say this was Orgrimmar?" the Doctor chimes in. "So are we on Azeroth?"

Vol'jin glances back at him as they walk. They are taking a back way into the city, by the look of it – a large gate of metal and bone tucked into a forest.

"Ju ain't from around here," Vol'jin says. It's not really a question.

"Definitely not," Harry says.

"Azeroth!" the Doctor says. "You know, I've always been meaning to go here! Such a _fascinating_ evolutionary history! It's not often you get so many sentient races developing side-by-side on the same planet."

"If ju say so," Vol'jin says.

"You're handling this whole we're-from-another-planet thing pretty well," Draco says.

"If dis was de weirdest shit I'd ever seen, my life would be a lot more borin'."

Draco grins. "I had a feeling I liked you," he says.

"Stop flirting with the Warchief, Malfoy," Harry growls at him.

"Eat dicks, Potter."

"We goin' to de Cleft of Shadow," Vol'jin says. "Ju say ju had nothin' ta do wit' de cargo ship crash an' I'm tempted ta believe ju, but I can't ignore de energy."

"Energy?" the Doctor asks.

"Can't ju smell it on jaself?" he asks, glancing back at him. "To me it's comin' off ju as thick as smoke from a bonfire. Energy, de same as de one comin' off dat naga."

"We had nothing to do with those naga!" Harry insists.

"I'm afraid I can't take jor word on dat," Vol'jin says. "I'll be askin' one of my advisors – Gadrin!"

The Cleft of Shadow, as it turns out, is a great underground chasm smelling strongly of incense and lit insufficiently. The entire city of Orgrimmar is carved into a canyon, and the Cleft is a cave beneath it. Tents are set up on the tiers of the cave, and orcs and trolls and other creatures crisscross the paths – though they all shy away as Vol'jin passes.

Gadrin is another troll, as it turns out – not nearly so massive or so intimidating as Vol'jin, but strange and wild-looking. A third troll is tied to a chair in the tent behind him, and when he sees them approach, he pulls up a wooden mask from his face.

"Warchief," he says, sweeping into a bow so low that his long, pointed nose brushes the ground.

"Gadrin, please," Vol'jin says. "Ju've known me since I was a whelp. Dese honorifics ain't necessary."

Gadrin offers a strange quirk of a smile. His eyes are sharp and quick, and the strings of bones adorning his fitted leathers rattle as he moves. Rather than further discussing what title he should use, he asks, "Ju've brought humans into Orgrimmar."

The Doctor waves. Harry seems preoccupied peering into the nearby cauldron, bubbling with a viscous green liquid. Draco is about to introduce himself, when Gadrin swoops toward him and grabs a handful of his hair to sniff deeply.

"Oh," Draco says, laughing. "All right. Hello, there."

"Ju smell like dark energy," Gadrin informs him. Then, "Also mint."

"Well, the mint is probably my shampoo," Draco says. "Can't explain the dark energy."

"Ju smell et, too," Vol'jin says. "Et's de same smell I noticed on a fleet of naga dat came to attack us where der ship crashed."

Gadrin hums long and low.

"Wait," Harry says, "this is a sedative potion."

Gadrin keeps sniffing Draco's hair, but Vol'jin frowns. "How does a human know de ways of voodoo?"

"We just call it potions," Harry says. "Malfoy, this is literally just a sedative potion, isn't it?"

Draco frowns, then looks over the rim of the potion. Sure enough, Draco recognizes it instantly. It uses different ingredients, Draco's sure, but the magical properties are precisely the same. "I suppose they developed what we call potions independently," he says. "Neat."

"It seems strange to think that magic is a universal force," Harry says.

"Of course it's a universal force," Draco says flippantly. "Earth isn't _that_ special."

"Well, I guess I never thought of it.

"Clearly," Draco says flatly.

Before Harry can snap back, Gadrin bends forward and takes another very deep sniff of the air around them, which successfully distracts Harry from whatever argument was about to start.

"That is kind of weird," Harry says.

"Interestin'," Gadrin mutters. "Ju smell dat, Warchief?"

Vol'jin nods slowly. "Et gets stronger when dey bicker."

"Does it?" the Doctor say suddenly. He is suddenly at Gadrin's side. "How can you tell? My sensory organs are pretty finely developed, but I've never noticed any energy from them."

"Trolls be uniquely tuned into the spirits and energies of de natural world," Gadrin says. "Dat's what voodoo be." He smiles toothily at the Doctor.

But the Doctor seems newly preoccupied with Draco and Harry. Draco can see the mental acrobatics going on behind his eyes as he tries to put everything together.

That's when the troll tied to the chair wakes up – and immediately starts to scream and thrash in his bonds.

"Guards," Vol'jin says sharply, and two large orcs hurry over to hold him steady.

Gadrin seems reluctant to look away from Draco – or more specifically, to stop smelling his hair – but he eventually turns away, dipping a ladle into the cauldron full of sedative. "Hold his nose," Gadrin says, and one of the guards does that, using the grip to tilt his head back before Gadrin pours it down his throat.

"Do ju recognize de Warchief, brudda?" Vol'jin asks him, moving forward as the troll thrashes. "Ju smell like a Darkspear. Were you born in Durotar or in Stranglethorn?"

It takes a few minutes for the sedative to kick in. The thrashing gets weaker, and he slumps forward, panting.

"Need—" the troll chokes, "—gotta get to de ocean."

"What's in de ocean?" Vol'jin asks, crouching down in front of him. "What happened to jor ship?"

"De singer," the troll says, before suddenly getting much louder. "De singer! I gotta get to de singer!"

He tries to thrash again, but the sedative has already settled into his muscles, and the guards don't even have to hold him steady.

"Singer," Draco says, unable to determine why that sounds familiar.

"She's callin' me!" the troll wails.

"Like a siren?" Harry asks. Vol'jin glances back at him querulously. "You know – a mermaid. They sit on rocks and sing, drawing sailors to their deaths with their song."

Vol'jin shakes his head slowly. "De closest thing we got to dat on Azeroth is de naga, an' dey don't sing."

"It sounds like a siren, as much as I hate to admit that Potter's right about anything," Draco says. "If it is a siren, we should be able to handle it pretty easily."

"Ju wanna help," Vol'jin says.

Draco smiles at him. "Why wouldn't we?"

Vol'jin rises to his full composure, looming down over Draco. "We ain't used to humans bein' helpful is all."

"Well, I think it's fair to say that we aren't quite like the humans you're used to."

Vol'jin pauses, then smirks. "Apparently not."

"Warchief," Eitrigg says, "I must advise against this."

"Give de Alliance some credit, Eitrigg," Vol'jin says. "If dey wanted to undermine us, dey would pick a much less conspicuous way."

"And you plan to involve yourself in this further?" Eitrigg says.

"Dis is happening on de doorstep of Orgrimmar," Vol'jin says. "I am de Warchief of de Horde and I cannot ignore dis threat."

"Then send someone else to investigate," Eitrigg says. "That is what a Warchief does; he delegates responsibility. He does not put himself in harm's way, not when his death means the dissolution of the Horde!"

Vol'jin's nostrils flare. "I must believe dat de Horde is strong enough to survive my death."

"Why would you even want to risk it?"

"I'm not," Vol'jin says. "I have not gotten weaker, Eitrigg, in de time I've been cooped up in Orgrimmar."

"That is not what I am implying. We do not know the extent of this threat—"

"When de sedative wears off," Vol'jin interjects, nodding toward the bound, sleepy troll in the chair, "turn him loose."

Gadrin sniffs thoughtfully. "Ju think he's gonna swim right to dis singer he mentions?"

"It seems likely," Vol'jin says. "Gadrin, stay here and see if ju can pin down what de energy is."

"Aye, Warchief."

"Clever," Draco says. "So are we going to follow him? Might be difficult. A ship would outstrip him."

Vol'jin pauses, smiles, and glances to Eitrigg. "I think we can come up with something."

* * *

The something turns out to be wyverns.

They are massive and furred – lions' heads, bats' wings, scorpions' tails – decked out in gleaming red armor.

"Hagrid would _fucking love_ this place," Harry says at once as he hesitantly stretches out his hand for the nearest wyvern to sniff.

"I am not entirely sure I'm on board with this," Draco says. "In general, my rule is not to ride anything with a face, or more specifically, a mouth full of very sharp teeth."

"Scared, Malfoy?" Harry asks, and he swings right onto one of the wyvern's back. Draco feels a familiar stab of affection, all tangled up in the usual frustration in disdain, and in an effort to contain it all, he frowns.

"I'm not scared, I'm just rightfully uneasy, Potter."

"I prefer de giant bats, myself," Vol'jin says, moving forward past Malfoy and placing an affectionate hand on one of the wyvern's ears sticking out through its metal face plate, "but de wyvern is de flagship mount of de Horde. I am told it would be improper for me to ride anything else."

Draco hesitantly approaches the same wyvern. It may be his imagination, but it seems to growl at him. He takes a half-step back.

"It can smell jor fear," Vol'jin tells him.

"Then we may have a bit of a problem," Draco says.

Vol'jin chuckles. "Den ride with me."

Draco looks back in surprise. "Ride with you?"

"I won't let ju fall," he says, and after a moment, Draco grins.

"Are you flirting with me, Warchief?"

"I prefer to think of et as returnin' fire," he says, and Draco laughs.

"Well, if I may say so, you're _much_ better at it than some people I've met," Draco says, and when Vol'jin swings easily onto the wyvern in front of him, Draco moves forward with a bit more hesitance to do the same.

He does not see Harry, behind him, growling in the back of his throat.

* * *

The flight over Ogrimmar is breathtaking. The great canyon of red rock sprawls out beneath them, and in the distance, a blue ocean is freckled white with sunlight.

If the fleet of guards weren't enough to give Draco some feeling of security, holding tightly onto Vol'jin with both arms does. It is very difficult to feel unsafe, he notices, when one is gripping with both hands onto something much larger and stronger than oneself.

And really, apart from the fact that the wyvern growls occasionally, it feels very much like riding a broom.

"Dis is what I miss," Vol'jin says, and Draco looks to the side, where Harry has gotten a hold of riding wyverns far too quickly, the brilliant prodigal bastard, and Draco tries not to watch the way his hair shines in the sun. "Open air. Loa, et's good to be out of Grommash Hold."

"Not a fan of being the Warchief?" Draco asks. "Might have been a poor career choice."

Vol'jin laughs once. "Wasn't so much a choice as et was a sudden responsibility," he says. "Et turned out that my predecessor was flirtin' with madness. I was glad to oust him, I just wasn't expectin' to replace him."

"You couldn't have turned it down?"

"Ef not me, who else?" Vol'jin sighs deeply, tugs the reins of the wyvern so they drop over the edge of the cliff, gliding down toward the water. The troll, as they suspected he might be, is swimming frantically through the ocean, fighting a current that only seems to get stronger further away from the coast. "De Horde called out for my help, and I was obliged to answer."

"That's laudable," Draco says.

"Den I suppose it's cruel of me to be so unhappy with it."

"Not cruel," Draco says. "It's not your job to be happy about destiny, just to do the best of it you can."

Without meaning to, Draco glances back at Harry, growls at himself, then looks forward again.

Vol'jin glances back at him, then to Harry, then looks forward again. "Jor pretty smart for a human," he says.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Draco says.

"Good," Vol'jin says, "et is."

Draco grins.

"Hold on, Draco Malfoy," Vol'jin says, and then Draco feels his stomach drop as they dive bomb toward the water. Draco laughs and holds on tighter.

"Do ju feel et?" he asks, shouting over the wind screaming past Draco's ears.

"Feel what?"

"De energy. De same one comin' off ju."

"I don't," he says. "I never did. I'm still not entirely sure what you're talking about."

"Der be only two things in de universe," Vol'jin says, and he pulls the wyvern up at the last second so the water is just blow them. The tip of Draco's boot skirts across the surface. "Matter an' energy. Energy acts, matter is what is acted upon."

Draco briefly considers the fact that he is on a wyvern, behind a massively powerful troll, flying over an ocean on an alien planet, getting an explanation in cosmology from the Warchief of the Horde.

He is not sure at what point his life became quite this weird, or this awesome.

"Der be all kinds of energy crisscrossing de universe," Vol'jin continues. "Some of it is imperceptible, like de energy dat holds matter together, an' some of et is unignorable – like whatever's comin' off ju."

"Magic is an energy," Draco says. "I'm a magic user."

"An' I know what magical energy feels like," Vol'jin says. "Dis is not magical energy. Dis is something different, an' it has to do wit' dat handsome boy ju keep lookin' at."

Draco is about to vehemently deny that he is looking at Potter, before he realizes that he has to look away from him to do it.

"Et interacts with him," Vol'jin says. "Et's comin' off him, too."

Draco frowns, and even though he feels stupid for it, he looks over at Potter, who is doing a loop-de-loop in midair on his wyvern, the hateful bastard. He takes to it as well as he takes to a broom. Of course he'd be a natural. Draco's chest aches as he watches.

"An' et's also coming from dat!"

Draco looks forward, then does what he imagines to be a flawless double-take.

He isn't quite sure what he's seeing for a while – some sort of massive shadow against the water, at least as wide as a ship, twisting and undulating in strange ways.

"What the _fuck_ is that?" Draco asks.

"Dat," Vol'jin says, "es a kraken."

"We should try talking to it!" It's the Doctor, on a wyvern of his own.

"Talking to it?" one of the guards shouts back. "It doesn't even have a mouth!"

As they swoop lower on the wyvern, Draco can make out more details of it – it is a shell, he suddenly realizes – massive and spiraling in on itself. Lurking below the surface of the water, Draco can see long tentacles disappearing into the darkness.

"Well apparently it can sing," the Doctor calls, "so it must have _some_ way of communicating! Hello, there!"

The Doctor ghosts down toward the water, his wyvern eyeing the top of the shell suspiciously as it bobs slowly and lazily in the deep.

"Hello! My name is the Doctor! Can you hear me?"

For a moment, there's no answer. Then there comes the rush and hiss of water as it slowly, slowly comes rising up out of the ocean.

Then, with a quickness that is utterly ad odds with its slow ascent, a long tentacle whips out of the water and snatches a guard's wyvern from midair.

"_Attack!_" Vol'jin orders, and the guards fumble to nock their bows. "_Attack!_"

"Whoa!" the Doctor says. "Rude! We only wanted to _talk_—!"

A second tentacle comes snarling up out of the water and it snakes its way around the Doctor and his wyvern, tugging him downward.

Draco's heart is at once in his throat. "Doctor!"

Vol'jin swoops lower on his wyvern and comes in slashing with his glaive, but the metal only makes a shallow mark in the thick, rubbery skin. Black blood goes spraying across the water, and something under the water screams.

"_Doctor!_" Draco cries when he sees him pulled under. "Hang on!"

"Draco!" Vol'jin says, but Draco is already diving deep into the water, and the eclipsing silence roars in his ears.

The salty water stings his eyes, but he can still see – the Doctor is being pulled down, and Draco dives after him, pulling his wand from his sleeve.

One slashing spell – a second – a third – it takes four separate spells to sever the tentacle from the Doctor, and by then his lungs are burning. He grabs the Doctor by the shoulder and swims upward as quickly as he can.

They crash through the surface of the water, where the sounds of battle are raging. The kraken seems most interested in Vol'jin, who is putting on what is frankly an upsettingly impressive display of midair combat and magic. Draco, his arm still locked in the Doctor's, scrambles up onto the shell as the creature rocks and bucks in the tide, and as more massive tentacles come slashing up out of the water.

"Are you all right?" Draco asks him, coughing up sea water.

"My usual tactics don't appear to be working," he answers.

"You can't reason with _everything,_" Draco says.

They both go stumbling forward when the kraken suddenly lifts its head – or what serves as its head – out from the surface of the water. Two large eyestalks break the surface, and it makes a sound—

"_Cover jor ears!_" Vol'jin howls, but it's too late. The sound that comes out of it is impossible but inevitable, discordant but irresistible, cacophonous but inescapably beautiful. It sets Draco's mind on fire.

"That resonance!" the Doctor shouts, covering both ears with his hands. "That's what brought the TARDIS down! It was an attack, a direct attack! What does a mermaid-kraken want with the TARDIS?"

The head moves even further up and out of the water; sharp, obsidian mandibles come gnashing through the water. In air, the sound is even more beautiful-terrible, and Draco can feel the nerves in his legs tremble, alight with electricity. Moving toward that gaping, vicious maw is not so much imperative as it is a law of nature, and Draco goes stumbling toward it, along with all the other guards, who are dropping off their wyverns and swimming frantically toward it.

"Draco? Draco, stop!"

"_Fight et, ju damn grunts!_" Vol'jin roars, who, it seems, is not so easily taken in. "_Fight et!_"

But Draco knows there is no fighting it. The music calls and he answers. He goes clambering up the shell, toward the massive mandibles, and he sees—

—Harry, diving downward on his wyvern, dismounting and hurrying toward it from the other side of the shell—

—Harry, running for the mandible same as Draco, but wouldn't—?

_No, no, no,_ and something thin and frail inside Draco snaps, and _no_, Harry can't go running into it, he'll die, Draco can't let him die—

Draco turns, and he lunges, and he grabs Harry around the middle, and they go tumbling further down the shell of its back toward the water.

The music is no longer beautiful, just discordant. Draco grabs hold of a ridge on the shell with one hand, Harry's arm with the other, and as the kraken rears up, they nearly go tumbling into the water.

"Malfoy!" Harry cries, dangling by his fingertips.

And Draco is _terrified_, Harry is dangling over a writhing mass of tentacles that will surely kill him if he falls into it; fear and adrenaline and something else, something more, floods into his bloodstream. "_Harry! Hang on!_"

His fingers slip, and something hot and powerful comes pulsing out of him off the tips of his fingers, where his skin meets Harry's, and he holds tightly, and there is a sound like thunder. The kraken's shell splits up the middle and the singing turns to screaming.

Draco loses his grip and falls into the water, but he feels Harry's arms around him, and the strange and impossible energy cleaving open the kraken. Black blood fills the water, and they go deeper and deeper into the darkness, holding onto each other—

—until a familiar blue hand grabs Draco's shoulder and pulls him up.

It's Vol'jin, fierce and terrible and glowing with magic.

"Not sure what ju did," Vol'jin shouts over the terrible cacophany of the kraken's screaming, "but et sure did work!"

The Doctor is sitting on the wyvern behind him, still drenched with sea water. "We need to get out of here; the energy is unstable!"

"Hold on tight, Draco Malfoy," Vol'jin says, and they go sweeping up into the air, still dangling from the Warchief's arm.

* * *

Vol'jin can tell that Eitrigg wants to lecture him. Every terrible thing that he warned would come to pass came to pass, and it's obvious that he wants to shout himself hoarse about it. Unfortunately, Eitrigg has never been one to forget propriety, and he knows that he's in no position to tell the Warchief anything, no matter how justified.

"You've created a _spaciotemporal static rift_," the Doctor says to Gadrin enthusiastically. "Linked by _common energy?_ That's _fascinating!_"

"Can you do that sort of thing with magic?" Harry asks him.

"Apparently!"

"De Warchief asked Gadrin to investigate de energy," Gadrin says, "so dat is what Gadrin do. De energy permeates time and space in a very specific way. Dis is where it go."

Gadrin gestures to the wall. The spaciotemporal rift, as the Doctor called it, looks to Vol'jin's eyes to be rather like a portal, soft and translucent and rippling against the subtle currents of air.

"This is the energy that you said Draco and I had," Harry says to Gadrin, and Gadrin nods slowly.

"I didn't _forge_ de connection," Gadrin explains, "I just _open_ et. Dis connection has always existed and always will. All I do was smush it open."

"I imagine that's the technical term," Harry says, leaning toward the portal. "Where does it go?"

Gadrin shrugs. The bones on his leathers rattle. "Don't know," Gadrin answers. "Go t'rough an' find out."

"I think et's jor destiny to go through dat portal," Vol'jin says to Draco, who is still wringing the sea water out of his hair. The oppressive Durotar sun only helps so much.

"I don't believe in destiny," Draco answers, grinning.

"No," Vol'jin says, "ju don't seem like de type to believe in destiny. But de energy dat created dat portal es tied to ju, like et was tied to de kraken. I don't know what jor gonna find, but et can only take ju closer to where jor goin'."

Draco sighs, puts his hands on his hip, eyes the portal. The Doctor and Harry are still speaking animatedly with Gadrin, but Vol'jin's attention is now squarely on Draco.

"Nothing with Potter has ever been simple," he says after a moment. "Everything between us has always been…"

Vol'jin waits for him to finish, but Draco never does. He shakes his head, looks up at Vol'jin.

"Part of me doesn't want to go," Draco says. "I quite like Azeroth. I'd be keen to see more of the Horde."

Vol'jin smiles. It seems strange, but in such a short time, he finds that he's already grown rather fond of Draco, the small, fierce human, fearless and reckless and sly.

"And I wouldn't mind showin' ju," Vol'jin admits, "but I think Eitrigg was right from de start. I am de Warchief now, and I can't go puttin' my own life in jeopardy any more. And I certainly can't let myself get distracted by pretty blonde boys."

"You can let yourself get a _little_ distracted," Draco says coyly, and Vol'jin laughs.

"I ain't gonna lie," he says. "I like ju, Draco Malfoy. But my life is here, and jor life is not here. So no matter how much I like ju, et wouldn't be smart to get attached."

Draco sighs deeply. "I suppose."

"Besides," Vol'jin says, "I think jor already attached to someone else."

They both look at Harry at the same time. Draco, quite abruptly, looks rather stiff and solemn.

"I'm no wise mon," Vol'jin says, "but I know a little somthin' about love. I saw it when ju dove for him on de back of dat kraken."

Slowly, Draco shrinks, starting at his shoulders and slumping downwards through his spine. Vol'jin can't quite tell if it's out of shame, fear, or sudden realization. He lowers his head.

"Does he know?" Vol'jin asks.

Draco doesn't answer immediately. When he does, his voice is small.

"No."

Vol'jin nods slowly.

"He doesn't… he has no idea. And he would never…"

"Ju know, der is no word in de Zandali tongue for 'never,'" Vol'jin says. "De Darkspears recognize dat der be no such thing as impossibility."

Draco doesn't answer. After a moment, Vol'jin puts a hand on his back.

"Draco!" the Doctor suddenly calls. "We should go through this portal!"

"Go on, now," Vol'jin says. "Loa's blessings witcha."

Draco offers a smile that is painfully forced, and he embraces Vol'jin, and Voljin puts a hand on his hair.

And when Draco heads toward the Doctor and Harry, he notices there's a small, black, metal something in his hand. Vol'jin stares at it in confusion, turning it over in his hands.

"What's dis?" he calls after Draco.

"Slide to unlock when it rings!" Draco says, shortly before vanishing into the portal.


	10. Siren Song

"The Fluffy Pal Adoption Agency has gone on the record saying that the event was a complete success, that all of those fluffy little critters are now safe and healthy with permanent homes. The adopters are thanked effusively by the Fluffy Pal Adoption Agency, or at least the adopters still conscious enough to hear them are. They are the only known survivors of the Fluffy Pal Adoption Agency's Happy Adoption Day, or at least they are for now, before the Fluffy Pals finish consuming their organs.

"And listeners, before I leave you, we have an announcement from the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency, just into my desk."

It had appeared amid the pile of papers and electronic equipment and miscellany on his desk, snarling into existence like it had been consumed by fire in reverse. It was the standard method of dissemination from the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency, so presumably the announcement was fairly routine.

Cecil carefully unfolds the blood red envelope, careful to avoid its teeth, and pulls the announcement out.

"They are notifying all Night Vale citizens that two large portals have been opened up on opposite corners of the city; the first far above the Arby's, and the second not far from the abandoned mine shaft outside of town. While the the portal above the Arby's seems fairly standard within the scope of unexplainable, extradimensional portals, the portal near the mine shaft is said to be the source of a strange, otherworldly singing."

Cecil sighs. The report is quite lengthy and he certainly does not have time to read it all on the air.

"The report goes on for about eleven pages, listeners," he says, flipping through the notice. "It describes in great an exhaustive detail the beauty of the sound that is coming out of the Arby's portal, describing the haunting and beautiful voice that beckons us all with its seductive and dulcet tones. The prose is quite gaudy, but then, this is the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency. We know how they love their pedantry."

He keeps flipping.

"Ah, here we go. At the end of the report, it urges Night Vale citizens not to go near the portal, because such lovely and awe-inspiring sounds are not meant for the common rabble, and also because it appears to be sucking people off to parts unknown. The Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency assures its citizens that everything is under control, and to take standard extradimensional portal precautions when near said portals."

Cecil puts the notice back in the envelope.

"Listeners, I hate to say it, but this may be yet another example of overregulation at its worst. What citizen of Night Vale doesn't know how to behave around extradimensional portals? Are we not all trained in how to handle them? Why, I remember being eight years old and learning the old mnemonic about extradimensional portals. It saddens me to think that our tax dollars, collections, tariffs, and organ donations are put to such frivolous uses. We certainly don't need the Vague Yet Menacing Government to concern itself over such a trivium when there are far more important issues to deal with.

"But then, what is governance but an ever-evolving process? A terrible, terrible ever-evolving process. In the great roller coaster of government authority, all we can do is hold on with both hands and hope that the whole thing does not crash around us.

"Coming up next, silence, and creeping dread of things not done.

"And with that I must bid you good night, listeners, good night."

He flips the switch that takes him off the air, and looks at the envelope again. It is still snarling and twitching, its large, serrated teeth gnashing. It's sort of cute.

He thinks about the portals, then he thinks about the Arby's, then he thinks about Carlos. He produces his phone, and sees two new tweets from him.

_Just dissected a mammoth. Not sure how mammoth got inside cactus. Also not sure why squeaking._

Cecil smiles.

_Is definitely mammoth tho. Tiny mammoth. Cecilradio look at this #adorable pic!_

It does not look like a mammoth to Cecil. It looks like a long, blood-red carrot. But if Carols says it is a mammoth, Cecil believes him. And it is definitely cute. Far cuter than the envelope.

Cecil tweets back at him (_So cuuuuuuute! Xoxoxoxoxoxoyzyzyzyz_) and feels that familiar stab of longing, and remembrance.

He misses Carlos very much, and wonders if going back to that Arby's will make him feel better.

* * *

There is nothing, for quite some time. Not Draco's usual definition of nothing – which is to say, blackness and silence and stillness – but truly _nothing_. There is nothing but a full and fundamental _absence_, a lack of things, and Draco cannot breathe. For a second, he is not sure if he even exists.

And then, just as abruptly as there was nothing there is something, and Draco falls face-first into it.

"All right?"

Draco is grabbed by one shoulder and hauled to a stand. Flecks of gravel still stick to his body. Somewhere above him, there's a moon. Earth's moon? It _looks_ like Earth's moon, but far too large.

"Draco?"

He looks up. Potter is staring down at him watchfully, inspecting him for wounds.

"I'm fine," he says, withdrawing. His conversation with Vol'jin is still rattling around in his head, making him feel vulnerable and frightened. Just looking at Harry reminds him of how he had to admit to himself that he is in love, which is awful and terrifying and incredibly painful.

"Right," Harry says, with some uncertainty. "Where's the Doctor—?"

And as though he had been waiting for the punchline, the Doctor comes tumbling out of the portal and lands hard against Draco's back. Draco once again goes collapsing onto the gravel.

"_Blimey!_" the Doctor says. "That was a hell of a ride!"

"Doctor," Draco groans. He is very heavy, though Draco's sure most of the weight is made up of all eighty pounds of whatever's in the Doctor's pockets.

The Doctor is pulled to his feet, and Draco follows, dusting himself off, working the little bits of gravel distastefully out of his jumper.

"Where _are_ we?" Harry asks.

"Excellent question," the Doctor answers. "The short answer seems to be on top of a restaurant."

Draco looks up. He hadn't really noticed before, but sure enough, they are on top of a Muggle-looking fast food joint – an Arby's, by the large neon sign glaring down at them. It sits on the outskirts of a small desert town, with a deep blue-violet sky and roads extending into nothing.

"But it's not earth," the Doctor continues. He lifts his sonic screwdriver and set it to buzzing. The sound it makes sounds, to Draco's ear, rather strained and upset. "At least not entirely."

"How can a place be not entirely Earth?" Draco asks.

"Not sure yet," the Doctor answers. He walks to the edge of the roof, to the raised half-wall around it, and peers down over the edge. "Hullo down there!"

Draco walks to his side. A story down, sitting on the hood of a small, beat-up Toyota Camry, is a thin, strange-looking man with stylish glasses. He is staring back up at them, his knees hugged to his chest.

"Hello," he answers, raising one hand to block the neon glare of the sign. "Did you come out of the portal?"

"Seems so," the Doctor replies. "Any idea how we might be able to get down?"

"You could jump," the strange man returns.

"Without breaking any bones," the Doctor elaborates.

"Are you particularly springy?"

"Not very."

"Then I'm not sure," he answers.

Draco stuffs a hand into the Doctor's pocket and, batting away several full-size cellos and the Magna Carta, produces a grappling hook. "We could use this," Draco says.

"I didn't know I had that," the Doctor says.

"I've been systematically building up an entire survival kit in your pockets," Draco says. "Might as well, with all the space. Potter, fasten that end to the chimney, would you?"

Potter takes the hook end and secures it around the metal pipe as Draco tosses the rope over the side.

"It's probably not advisable to come down," the thin man says.

"Why's that?" the Doctor asks as Draco climbs over the side of the roof.

"Well, you're outsiders," he answers.

"We're outsiders everywhere we go," Draco says as he slowly starts sliding down the side of the wall. "We've just sort of gotten used to it."

"We usually don't take very kindly to strangers," the man says, just as Draco plants feet on terra firma. "They are dangerous and not to be trusted."

Draco crosses over to the aging Toyota Camry, working out the last bits of gravel from his jumper. "I'm Draco Malfoy," he says. "And you are?"

The man pauses. "Cecil Palmer," he answers.

"Well, there you are," Draco says. "Now we aren't strangers anymore."

Cecil thinks about that for a moment, then shrugs. "I guess you're right," he says. "I'm glad that's all solved."

Harry drops to the sidewalk behind him.

"Where are we?" Draco asks hm.

"You're in Night Vale," Cecil Palmer answers.

"Where's Night Vale?"

"West," Cecil answers.

"West of what?"

"Yes."

Draco opens his mouth, shuts it again, then frowns in confusion. "Okay, let me rephrase. Are we on earth?"

"Allegedly," Cecil says. "I mean, if you want to believe the academics."

"Then why's the moon so big?" Draco asks, looking up at it.

"Perhaps it's feeling particularly fat today," Cecil says. "I hope you haven't hurt its feelings."

"This is going to be a fun one," Draco says. He can already tell.

"Did you make the portal?" Cecil asks, eyeing it. Draco follows his gaze. It is hovering several feet over and slightly to the right of the Arby's roof, swirling deep violet and red.

"No," Draco answers. "That was a troll in a cave on another planet."

"Oh," Cecil says, sounding only mildly surprised. "Well, normally I would advise you telling that to the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency, but I don't think you should speak to them. They would assuredly take issue with your presence. In general, they take issue with anything that comes through portals."

"That happens a lot, does it?"

"Occasionally," Cecil says.

"Where are we?" Harry asks, wiping his hands off.

"In Night Vale, apparently," Draco says. "It's west."

"West of what?"

"Yes," Draco answers.

"What?"

"Who's this?" Cecil asks.

"Cecil Palmer, this is Harry Potter, and coming down the rope is the Doctor."

"Hello, Harry Potter. And hello, the Doctor."

"This place is _bizarre_," the Doctor says as he heads over. "I didn't notice it at first, but have either of you seen the stars?"

Draco – and Harry, and Cecil – look up.

"They seem fairly standard," Draco says.

"Not the stars themselves; the _positions_. These constellations are not formed anywhere in the universe."

"How delightful!" Cecil says. "We should really inform the Night Vale Board of Tourism. That's surely a selling point."

"It's—" the Doctor begins, "—it's not – sorry, who are you and where are we?"

"He's Cecil Palmer, and we're in Night Vale, which is west."

"West of what?"

"Yes," Cecil and Draco answer together.

"Okay," the Doctor says. "Well, I don't want to alarm anyone, but I'm _fairly_ sure that this place exists outside space and time."

"Is that possible?" Harry asks.

"Apparently," the Doctor says. "How else would you explain a completely unique set of constellations?"

"If it's any consolation," Cecil says, "I'm told that the constellations often rearrange themselves. The Department of Astronomy in Night Vale Community College says they're quite finicky, in general. Sometimes they don't show up at all."

The Doctor stares at him in silence. The expression on his face is one that Draco is entirely unused to seeing – utter and abject confusion. It's not very often that the Doctor is at a complete loss for words.

"That's not… how stars work," the Doctor says, slowly.

"You scared one away," Cecil says.

The Doctor spins on a heel and looks wildly through the night sky.

"So the source of the energy is here?" Draco says. "The same whatever that's in me and in Potter? It's here, somewhere?"

"How is that possible," the Doctor says, staring in astonishment up at the sky (apparently he found the lone star that had buggered off). "That isn't supposed to be possible. Stars don't go out like lights, that's not—"

"Doctor, focus," Draco says. "This is where Gadrin sent us. Is this where the energy is coming from?"

The Doctor turns reluctantly, though eh continues looking nervously over his shoulder, up at the sky. "I don't think so," he says. "Well, I mean, I don't know. But it's not likely. The energy seems to react with itself fairly strongly, so if it were, there would be some sort of very obvious kinetic event."

Not long after the Doctor finishes speaking, there comes the sound of a sudden, catastrophic car crash.

Cecil is the first to turn around, sufficiently distracted from the conversation. "That's coming from the car lot," he says, then sits up straighter. "Old Woman Josie!"

"Sounds like an obvious kinetic event to me," Draco says. "Cecil, can you take us there?"

But Cecil is already running, his long, knobbly legs seeming entirely too thin to hold him up as he sprints. Draco gives a look to Harry and the Doctor, then sets off after him.

Not far past the Arby's, past a run-down set of homes and another restaurant whose lights are off, there is a large, sprawling car lot – or at least that's what it looks like at first blush. It's not easy to tell, because most of Draco's attention is on the pack of wolves sulking just outside the door of the dealership, slinking in and out of sight between the cars.

Cecil runs past them as if he does not see them, and heads right past it. There is a small mobile home on a lot out behind it, with a car crashed into it.

"Josie!" Cecil calls. "Josie! Are you in there? It's me, Cecil!"

He hurries to the door – it is buckled slightly, the metal warped by the force of the car that has slammed into it several feet away – and knocks. "Josie? Josie, are the Erikas there? Erikas!"

"Who's Erika," Harry asks, "and why are there multiples of her?"

Before Draco can answer, a tall figure seems to pass through the buckled wall of the mobile home like a ghost. Draco can't pin down exactly what it is, but if he had to take an educated guess, he would say an angel. It is tall and white and pulsing with strange music.

"Erika, thank goodness," Cecil says. "What happened? Where is Josie?"

"CECIL," the angel – Erika – says with gentle urgency, "ERIKA HAS LEFT, AND HAS TAKEN HIS PROTECTION."

Draco has a lot of questions, but the most pressing is— "Is – am I looking at an angel?"

"YES," Erika says.

"Maybe," Cecil says. "We haven't _definitively_ established—"

"WE DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS, CECIL," Erika says. "JOSIE IS IN DANGER AND ERIKA HAS LEFT WITHOUT EXPLANATION. WE MUST HELP JOSIE AND FIND ERIKA."

"Harry," Draco says. "You know field medicine."

Harry hurries forward, blasting open the door with his wand to avoid having to fight with the bent metal.

"ERIKA WAS THE LARGEST SOURCE OF ANGELIC PROTECTION FOR JOSIE," Erika says. "I DON'T KNOW IF SHE EVER TOLD YOU, CECIL, BUT JOSIE IS EXTREMELY UNLUCKY."

Cecil gasps, putting a hand to his mouth. "Was it a hex? A curse from the Whispering Forest?"

"NO," Erika says, "SHE JUST SORT OF HAS BAD LUCK. SHE'S ALSO REALLY UNCOORDINATED SO, YOU KNOW, THAT DOESN'T HELP."

"I never knew," Cecil says. "She was always the core of our bowling team."

"What is even happening," Draco says.

"WITHOUT ERIKA'S PROTECTION, JOSIE COULD BE SUSCEPTIBLE TO ANYTHING FROM A REALLY BAD HANGNAIL TO DEATH."

"But I _like_ Old Woman Josie," Cecil says, clasping his hands against his chest.

Harry pushes his way out of the house a moment later, carrying a small, crooked woman out in his arms. Draco does his best not to find the heroism likable or appealing in any way, to only lukewarm success.

"Got her," Harry says. "She's alive."

The angel – or whatever it is; it seems to have a few too many eyes to be an angel – swoops down as Harry lies her down on the ground, and presses a long, spindly finger to her forehead. She snaps awake with a jerk.

"Oh, goodness!" she wheezes. "Erika? Where's Erika? And all the other Erikas?"

"Why are they all named Erika?" Draco asks, but no one answers him.

"YOU ARE SAFE FOR NOW, JOSIE," says one of apparently a few Erikas, bending his too-long spine down to help her graciously to her feet, "BUT ALL THE OTHER ANGELS ARE GONE. I DO NOT KNOW WHY. THE STRONGEST ERIKA, WHO HAD BEEN PROTECTING YOU, IS NO LONGER DOING SO."

"The black one?" Josie asks.

"YES, I THINK SO."

"Oh, dear," Josie sighs, as Harry looks her over for injuries, "I liked him."

"Where would they go?" Cecil asks. "All the Erikas seemed so happy out here."

"I DO NOT KNOW," Erika answers, "BUT WHEN HE LEFT, I RECALLED HIM SPEAKING OF SINGING."

"Singing," Draco says, finally distracted from the madness of the past few minutes. Singing, why is it always singing? There is a song, it seems, that is following him – and Harry, and the Doctor – through all of space and time.

"Singing?" Cecil says. "You mean from the other portal across town?"

"There's _another portal?_" the Doctor says.

"Yes," Cecil says, "across town. Didn't I just say that?"

"Why didn't you say sooner?" the Doctor asks.

Cecil gives him a strange look. "It is forbidden to answer unasked questions," he says. "Duh."

"Right," Draco says. "I mean, obviously. Doctor, this singing—"

"We need to go to the second portal," the Doctor says. "This is very important."

"Well, the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency did imply that there was some singing coming from it," Cecil says, "but they also told us to stay away from it."

"It's _very_ important," the Doctor repeats.

"WE SHOULD GO," Erika says. "IF IT IS THE SOURCE OF THE SINGING, THEN ERIKA MIGHT ALREADY BE THERE."

"Well," Cecil says a second time, frowning in worry, "as much as I fear the repercussions of disobedience, this _does_ seem like an emergency…"

"WHERE IS THE PORTAL?" Erika asks. "I CAN FLY US THERE."

* * *

The angel Erika's definition of flight is someone out of line with Draco's, insofar as it is less like flying and more like falling sideways. Draco is not entirely sure what kind of magic it is that sends them all tumbling through the air over the city, but it is more frightening than he expects it to be.

If nothing else, it provides him with an excellent, if occasionally upside-down, view of the city. Night Vale sits on a sprawling desert, flat and barren, and apart from the fact that it seems to be the only city for at least a hundred miles, it seems – more or less – like a fairly standard city. Which is to say that it has buildings, and roads, and occasional cars and mailboxes and street lamps. It's the details that seem to worry Draco. For example, the slouching figures that he tumbles past, all congregated on a hill in a large wire enclosure with a sign reading "DOG PARK."

When they land – or when they collide, depending on the perspective – Draco collides with ground and rolls several meters until he's dizzy (or dizzier than he was when falling sideways).

"Merlin," he says. "Where _are_ we?"

"LOOK!"

Erika is pointing one long, bony finger forward. It takes Draco's vision a moment to stop swimming, but he sees it – the second portal, much larger than the first, all shades of red and violet and black and blue, with strange and terrible snarling shapes just beyond, and coming out of it—

"That song," Draco says. He would recognize it anywhere. "The – the siren song! From Azeroth!"

"Why isn't it effecting us?" Harry asks, scrabbling to his feet. "Last time I heard it, I nearly dove headfirst into a kraken's open mouth!"

"I AM PROTECTING YOU FROM IT," Erika says. "IT IS NOT EASY. I UNDERSTAND WHY ERIKA WAS DRAWN TO IT. DO YOU THINK HE ALREADY WENT IN?"

The Doctor is the first to approach. He is dusty from his own harsh landing on the naked desert ground, but he seems far more concerned with the portal. His sonic screwdriver is out and buzzing, and he moves toward the portal carefully, as though afraid it might bite.

"Draco," the Doctor says, "you were asking about the source of the energy."

Draco straightens. "Is this it?"

"I don't know," the Doctor answers. It sounds like it bothers him. "I don't _know_. Nothing in this city makes _sense_. My sonic screwdriver isn't even registering the laws of physics!"

"How can a place not obey the laws of physics?" Harry asks.

"_It can't,_" the Doctor says, obviously having quite a bit of trouble with the whole thing. "The energy it's giving off should be deep-frying everything in a two-hundred-mile radius, but it's _not_. Science isn't supposed to just _stop_ like this!"

Cecil is suddenly at the Doctor's side. "If you're having trouble with science, my boyfriend can help."

The Doctor looks at him askance. Cecil is smiling brightly, and it may be Draco's imagination, but he seems to have far too many teeth.

"Can he?"

"My boyfriend is a scientist," Cecil says. "He has been doing all sorts of experiments on Night Vale."

The Doctor frowns.

"Could be worth a shot," Draco says. "Maybe a local scientist will have an explanation for breaking physics."

"Let me call him," Cecil says, fishing his phone out of the pocket of his vest. "I'll put him on speaker phone. I'd invite him over, but he's temporarily stranded in an alternate dimension."

"How on _earth_ did he—" Draco begins, then shakes his head. "Never mind." It is very plainly not the most pressing question.

Cecil is speed dialing number two and waiting for it to ring. Within a few seconds, he's beaming brightly. "Hey, sugarknife. It's me. Is this a good time?"

The Doctor watches warily as strange impossible shapes twist and squirm in the portal.

"Well, there's another scientist here! He's upset about physics. Do you think you could help?"

Draco can hear loud, animated talking.

"Oh, good!" Cecil says. "Here, I'll put you on speaker."

When he pulls the phone down from his mouth and hits a button, the first thing Draco hears is a howling, screaming wind in the background. Literally screaming. As in, Draco can only tell that it's not screaming after a few seconds of internal debate.

"Hello!" says the tinny voice over the literally-screaming wind. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes, hello," the Doctor says, taking the phone from Cecil's offering hand, "who am I speaking to?"

"My name is Carlos. Hello! Cecil tells me that you're a scientist?"

"I'm the Doctor," says the Doctor, returning his attention to the portal.

"Splendid. I'm a doctor, myself, of science."

"Right, I got that," the Doctor says. "Cecil says you've been studying Night Vale."

"Yes," Carlos says, "that's the reason I came here. It's very interesting! Did you know that none of the clocks have any gears in them? They still keep time, though."

"More relevantly," the Doctor says, "none of the laws of physics are working. I have a portal here that's outputting 200,000 roentgens of radiation per _second_, but it is somehow both stable and _not_ ripping us to pieces. Any idea?"

"Radiation doesn't seem to have a typical effect in Night Vale," Carlos answers without missing a beat. "Or at the very least, it doesn't interact with other particles in the same way. Radiative particles still go through most objects, but they manage to do so without actually interacting with the particles they're passing through."

The Doctor stands in silence, sputtering for several seconds. "That's not possible!"

"I know!" Carols says. He sounds excited. "It's all very fascinating."

"Two particles can't collide _without interacting_ with each other at _all_," the Doctor says, steadily getting more shrill. "That is _not how physics work!_"

"You are so smart, Carlos," Cecil says, beaming.

"Cecil," Carlos chastises mildly, "now is not the time. I'm doing science. The Doctor, you said that you were at a portal. Can you describe it?"

The Doctor stares at the phone, then at the portal. "It's—" he begins haltingly, "—it's extremely volatile, it's the origin of some sort of siren song that is luring angels named Erika to their apparent deaths, and it's purple."

Cecil hums. "I need to get a look for myself. Cecil, can you Skype me?"

The Doctor deliriously passes the phone back to Cecil and starts running both hands through his hair.

"All right, Doctor?" Draco asks, trying to hide the fact that he finds this absolutely hilarious.

"I'll get back to you," the Doctor answers.

"Is it really that unexplainable?" Harry asks, suddenly on the other side of him.

"Harry," the Doctor says slowly, "these assumptions are as basic as you can get. If particles don't interact with each other, all matter just _stops_. If particles don't interact with each other, we can't be calling people on phones, we can't be standing on ground or _talking to each other_. Our atoms couldn't even be holding together! It's a fundamental law!"

"This place is really breaking your head," Draco says, biting back a grin.

"Got him!" Cecil says. He passes over the phone again, and it's Carlos on the screen, bronze-skinned and wearing a long white lab coat out in the middle of a desert full of screaming wind. His dark hair is going everywhere and there is a menacing red light flashing in the sky behind him, but all things considered, he seems quite put-together.

"Right," Carlos says. "Let's get a look at this portal."

The Doctor flips the phone around to show him.

"Hmm," Carlos says thoughtfully. "Well, that is most certainly a portal. What type of radiation is it outputting, the Doctor?"

"Fairly standard gamma rays," the Doctor says. "There's another one across town; it's the one that we came out of."

"I see!" Carlos says. "They appeared at the same time?"

"Yes," Cecil chimes in. "The Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency released a presser about it."

"Well, then clearly they're interacting with each other, and the natural energies of Night Vale."

"They are?" the Doctor asks.

"Night Vale is a veritable hot bed of different energies," Carlos explains matter-of-factly. "They interact with many different multiverses, pulling in lifeforms—"

"Wait, wait, wait," the Doctor says. "_Multiverses?_ You're – you're saying Night Vale is a _multiversal waypoint?_"

"What's a multiversal waypoint?" Draco asks.

"It's – it's just a theory," the Doctor explains, and though he seems baffled, Draco can now see the pieces connecting behind his eyes. "A sort of bubble of reality in the void between universes."

"It certainly makes life here very interesting," Carlos says. "Also terrifying, deadly, and occasionally nonsensical. And _very_ scientifically unique."

"That explains why physics don't work," the Doctor says, looking back up at the portal. "This is barely even reality. I'm – I am now slightly concerned about everything in this town suddenly blinking out of existence."

Harry stands up straighter. "Could that happen?" he asks. "Could we all suddenly stop existing?"

"This place isn't even supposed to exist in the first place," the Doctor says. "Anything is on the table."

"Don't worry," Cecil says. "Night Vale has a very good track record. We almost _never_ spontaneously stop existing. We've definitely got that problem mostly under control."

"Okay, wow," Draco says, "that is terrifying and we have to get out of here."

"No, really, it's fine," Carlos says. "Night Vale does seem to have a startling amount of stability. The matter in this place is largely threaded along the powerful surges of energy of all different sorts."

Draco decidedly does not want to think about how at any moment he could just stop existing, so he backs out of the conversation and lets the Doctor and Carlos duke it out.

The little strip of road leading up to the portal passes alongside an abandoned mine shaft, the wall of which Draco gratefully leans against before he pushes a hand into his waistcoat pocket, searching for the cigarette.

A moment later, Harry approaches, just as Draco is working his wand out of his sleeve to light the tip.

"I didn't know you smoked," he says.

"We could all stop existing without warning," Draco says. "Forgive me for wanting to clam my nerves – fuck. Magic doesn't work."

Draco supposes he shouldn't be surprised. Physics aren't even following the usual rules; he can't imagine why magic would. But it's only after Harry waves his own wand around a bit before he seems to concede it.

"Well," he says. "Shit."

"Sherlock Holmes gave me this cigarette," Draco says unhappily.

Harry frowns. "Well, smoking is bad for you."

"Oh, fuck off, Potter, there isn't a smoker in the universe who smokes for the health benefits."

Draco pushes his hands through his hair, the unlit cigarette dangling between his teeth.

Harry is silent. It's tense, and lengthy, and it speaks volumes.

"I don't understand," Harry says, slowly, "why it is so difficult to be nice."

"Fuck you."

"No," Harry continues, urgently, "I'm being serious. It is _literally difficult_ for me to be nice to you. Even though I _want_ to be."

Draco narrows his eyes and looks up at him. At least it's a sentiment that Draco understands.

"I've always _wanted_ to be nice, ever since you came bursting into my front garden chasing a killer unicorn. But I just – I feel like I can't make myself do it, and I don't know why."

Draco watches him warily.

"We fucked," Draco says.

"Yes," Harry agrees, "and that was easy. The easiest thing in the world. So why can't we just be nice to each other?"

"I don't know," Draco answers. He feels taut and on edge, like a wild animal being offered food. "Gardin – back on Azeroth, Gadrin and Vol'jin talked about an energy."

"That gets stronger when we bicker," Harry says. "And we bicker a lot. That is also easy. Almost as easy as the fucking was."

"We've got a long history of bickering," Draco points out. "A lot longer than the fucking. We've been doing that since we were eleven."

Harry straightens a little. "Do you think it goes back that far? This energy?"

"I don't know," Draco says, because he doesn't, and that is more terrifying than he thought it would be.

"I mean, you were a _monumental_ dickhole throughout most of your Hogwarts years—"

"Fuck you, Potter, you barely even knew me."

Harry grits his teeth. Draco feels it right along with him – the startling, frustrating inability to take the comment impersonally. "You _were_ a dickhole, Malfoy, you were an absolute _nightmare_ to me and everyone around me."

Draco bristles. "I was a kid! I didn't know what the fuck I was doing! I tried to befriend _you_, or don't you remember?"

Harry makes an exaggerated sound of disgust, turning away. "Oh, here it is," he says. "Is this what it comes back to? All those years of making me miserable because I wouldn't be friends with you after you _insulted Ron?_"

"I only insulted him because I—!"

He wants to continue – really, he does – but he finds that he doesn't know how. It was a problem he dealt with every time Potter showed his stupid face around him. Draco _knew_ he was awful to him, and he never knew _why_. He was never that way around his other friends. It was always just _Potter_, just _Potter_ who got under his skin, _Potter_ who made him into someone he wasn't, spiteful and prissy and callous.

"Because what?" Harry shouts at him. "I'm _really_ curious, Malfoy, because Ron is a good person who didn't deserve any of the shit you gave him!"

"_I know!_" Draco shouts back at him, and _BOOM!_

They don't even get the opportunity to look – all at once, they are both caught in a a riptide of light and sound, thrown backward into the corrugated metal wall of the mine shaft's entrance. The entire rickety building is thrown violently onto one side. Metal and slate crash and clatter around them, and for a moment Draco is utterly deaf and his vision is white.

The first thing he feels is a hand on his shoulder, and as his sense come back to him, Harry's voice pierces through the soft ringing.

"—all right? Draco—"

And as his vision clears, he can see Harry over him, and Merlin, it is so difficult to like him but it is so _painfully_ easy to love him, the bastard, with his soft green eyes and his welling concern, and he puts a hand on the side of Draco's face—

"I'm fine," Draco says, mostly, "I'm fine."

Harry breathes out. Draco can feel the ghost of it on his cheek.

"What happened?" Harry says, looking over his shoulder, and Draco struggles to sit up.

Several yards away, the portal is open wider than ever, as large as a house and snarling as much as singing. Erika's protection, Draco can feel, is getting thinner, and the seductive music becomes all the more tantalizing.

"Run!" It's Cecil's voice. "_Run!_ It's a librarian!"

What follows is the most horrendous voice Draco has ever heard, deep and sonorous and omnipresent. Draco is not sure where it's coming from until he sees it, slouching and melting out of the shadows, tall as a skyscraper with claws as long as cars.

"HOLY SHIT," screams Erika.

"_TOO MUCH NOISE!_" the great black librarian bellows as it stomps out from around a nearby building. The portal is a massive source of rushing wind, screaming energy, and burning black light, and the librarian comes thundering toward it.

"And our magic doesn't work!" Draco shouts over the roar. "Of course it doesn't!"

The Doctor comes diving for them, frantic. "We need to run!" the Doctor says. "That thing is—!"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence, mostly because the librarian is stomping its way toward the portal. What happens afterwards defies all explanation.

The librarian reaches into the portal with its great, taloned hands, and _something else reaches out_.

Draco can't quite make it out for a while; whatever creature comes groping out of the portal seems not quite tangible, darkly ethereal, but it wraps itself around the librarian's massive neck and the librarian howls so loudly that the living rock beneath them rumbles in protest.

The singing, at least for a time, stops, and the two monsters on either end of the portal struggle for several deafening moments—

—until, quite suddenly, it ends, when the librarian is pulled into the portal with a last shriek, and the world is silent. Eerily silent, a terrible contrast to the brutality and the noise of mere seconds ago.

"What the fuck," Harry hisses.

"Cecil?" Draco calls. "Erika? Are you okay?"

A moment later, Draco see's Cecil's head poke up from behind a car, overturned on the side of the road from the gale-force winds. Erika, Draco realizes a moment later, is hovering several yards in the air and away from the action, limbs drawn in as though in fear.

Draco pulls himself to his feet and heads to Cecil's side.

"I have never seen anything like that," Cecil says once Draco is within earshot. "And that says quite a lot, considering all the unspeakable things I've seen."

"Cecil, what happened?" comes Carlos's voice over the Skype call, which is, astonishingly, still connected. "I heard the baying of a librarian! Is everyone okay?"

"There is something on the other end of that portal, Carlos," Cecil says. Draco looks him over for injuries, but he seems all right. "Something that is singing sweetly but devouring everything that comes within reach. It is very dreadful indeed. It took out a librarian."

Carlos gasps.

"In my life," Cecil continues, "I have only met one other person who can kill a librarian."

"We may need their help," Draco says.

"Yes," Cecil agrees. "I think we do."

* * *

Tamika Flynn is a stocky girl, strong and sharp-looking. They find her in a book shop ("The Last Vestige," according to the sign), where she sits behind a cash register with her boots up on the counter. There is a well-thumbed copy of _Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid_ lying open her lap, and when they enter and make their way inside, the first thing Draco notices is that she is flipping a small throwing tagger around her fingers.

"Cecil," she say, and the first thing that occurs to Draco is that she is surprisingly articulate for a girl of thirteen. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Hello, Tamika," Cecil says, eyeing the rows and rows of books stretching back into the dimly-lit store with great unease. "We, ah, we need your help."

"Apparently," she answers, smirking. "It must be important if it brought you this close to a book store."

"You know how I feel about… books," Cecil says.

"Just so. You've never really let me forget. You've brought quite an entourage."

"This is Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, and the Doctor. They came through the slightly less nefarious portal over the Arby's."

"Ah!" Tamika says. "I was wondering what might come out of the portals this time."

"We have become less concerned with what will come out of them and more concerned with what's on the other side," Cecil says. "Whatever's waiting on the far end of the portal near the abandoned mine shaft took out a librarian."

Tamika abruptly stops flipping the throwing knife around her fingers. She sits up a little straighter, shuts the book, and rises to a stand.

"Did it?" she says. "That is cause for worry."

She walks to the large picture window that's looking out onto the eerie, still streets of Night Vale. Just over the low building on the other side of the road is the low, violet glow of the portal. When they left it, it had nearly become the size of a tower.

"I've been hearing the singing," she says after a moment.

"And you haven't been drawn to it?" Draco asks, surprised.

"No," she answers, looking back at _Gödel, Escher, Bach_. "A mind engaged in careful analysis rarely has the time to be ensnared by anything else. I've been doing a lot of thinking about music lately. Have you heard the melody?"

Draco stares at her in surprise. Even though the song had been following him across the universe, he'd never really thought to listen to the actual notes of it.

"It has no beat, no measures, no consistent shape to the sounds," she says, returning to the counter to draw her finger down the cover, "but there is still meaning in chaos, in the random volatility of it. You three mean to go to the other side of that portal, don't you?"

The Doctor cants his head to the side. "What makes you say so?"

"I can hear the same music coming from you two," she says, nodding to Draco and Harry. "Just as loud. Louder, maybe."

"What does that mean?" Harry asks her urgently. "You're not the first person to say these things."

"I'm not sure what it means," Tamika says, "but that doesn't imply that there is no meaning. If you need an answer, then you should go through that portal."

"They can't go through it!" Cecil says. "There's something waiting on the other side, something so terrible that it felled the Head Librarian!"

"Then the objective is simple," Tamika says. "When a door is stuck, you just use a little extra force so you can get through."

"Do you have the necessary force for that, Tamika Flynn?" Draco asks.

"I am the slayer of far more librarians than that portal," Tamika says. "I toppled Strex Corp and led the revolution." She grins at him. "I have grown very fond of Night Vale, and it will take something far more frightening than an extradimensional siren song to scare me away."

"Tamika," Draco says, "I think I quite like you."

* * *

By the time Tamika Flynn has assembled her army of book-wielding children – which Draco finds far more impressive than perhaps he should – the portal near the mine shaft is so enormous that it has nearly swallowed the horizon. Erika is hovering far above the army, glowing brilliantly, exerting whatever strength he has left to protect those present from the deadly siren song slinking and twisting out of the portal.

Draco sits on a bench, on a sidewalk, on the outer limit of Night Vale, staring at it as the battle readies.

"Talked a bit more with Carlos," the Doctor says, so abruptly that Draco jumps in his seat. "Between the two of us, I think we've mostly worked out why we're here."

"Right," Draco says. "Why?"

"As counterintuitive as it sounds, the portal took us here because we are here. Or rather, because we were always going to come here."

"Is this a time traveller thing?" Draco asks.

"A little bit," the Doctor admits. "This long seam of energy is actively being forged, has already been created, and will always be made, by you two," the Doctor says. "By you and Harry. It is drawn to the other source of energy – whatever is beyond the portal – almost gravitationally. Or it already has been drawn to it, depending on how you want to look at it."

"Which is why the song has been following us," Draco hazards.

"Well, yes and no," the Doctor answers. "It's sort of cyclical. The song is following us, but aren't we also following the song?"

The Doctor gestures to the portal and their rather loud attempt to get through it. Draco sighs and sits back against the bench. He might be hearing things, but it almost sounds like it's purring. He decides not to think too hard about it, for no other reason than it is by far not the strangest thing to happen to him so far in this town.

"What _is_ it?" Draco asks, looking at Harry, who is speaking with Cecil on the other side of the road. "What _is_ this energy, this _song_ between Harry and I?"

"I don't know," the Doctor answers. "I couldn't even sense it."

Draco drops his chin to his chest and rubs at his forehead with one hand.

"I want it to stop," Draco admits, with some reluctance. "I _really_ want it to stop. It is killing me that I can't just behave like a decent person around Potter. I never could and I still can't and I don't know why. He just brings out the worst in me."

"The worst and the best," the Doctor says. "You threw yourself into harm's way not that long ago to save him. And he did the same to save you. It's always one extreme or the other."

"What does that _mean?_" Draco asks him, and he is desperate and confused and so tired.

The Doctor sighs. "I don't know."

"_Book club assemble!_" Tamika bellows, and her army of children fall in line. Draco sighs, pushes himself to his feet, and moves to her side.

"You're very brave for doing this," Draco tells her.

"Bravery is never required to defend one's homeland," Tamika says, "merely a sufficient threat."

"Do you have a mobile phone?" Draco asks, but Tamika isn't listening. She's waving for something in the far back of her army.

"We once brought down a helicopter with this," Tamika says. "We've had to make a few adjustments, but I think it's safe to say that this new model is an improvement over the last."

Draco turns in time to see it being rolled out – massive and metal, on three wheels—

"A trebuchet!" Draco says.

"We call it a slingshot," Tamika says.

"How did you build that?"

"Books," Tamika answers ambiguously. "_Load the slingshot!_"

A few children come out from the back, loading a mass of metal and wires into the canvas sling.

"_We will hear this song no more!_" Tamika cries, and the army of children raise their books and shout their agreement. "_Send the beast back into the shadow! For Night Vale!_"

"For Night Vale!" the book club army echoes.

"_Release the counterweight!_"

A great groan of metal and tremendous shift of gravity. The counterweight drops, the trebuchet spins on its fulcrum, and the massive metal bomb goes hurling forward, tumbling through the air until it goes flying through the portal.

Silence, for a few dreadful moments, then—

_BOOM!_

The earth trembles, and the singing once again dissolves into screaming. Huge shadowy tendrils come snarling out of the portal, at least a dozen, and they go slicing through the air toward them. Draco stumbles back a few steps.

"_Book club to arms!_" Tamika says. "_Stand your ground!_"

It is somehow the strangest and the most impressive display Draco has ever seen. Wielding their hardback books like shields and their thin metal bookmarks like knives, the book club army meets the tendrils of shadow the moment they are within striking distance, and the battle is on.

"Tamika!" the Doctor cries, ducking great bursts of energy. "That bomb – do you have another?"

Tamika is hacking and slashing with the rest of her army, but she manages to shout back, "It obviously did not do enough!"

"I can modify it to expel a better source of energy!" the Doctor says. "If it can't kill it, it will at least send it away!"

"Then do it, Doctor, and do it quickly!"

Considering that Draco watched this terrible creature lay waste to a librarian not two hours ago, the army of children are doing astonishingly well holding their own. Draco grabs a hardback for himself off a nearby library cart – Volume 29 of the 1985 edition of _Encyclopedia Britannica_ – and joins the fray.

But despite their best efforts, the shadowy tendrils push forward, and the army is driven ever further back, down a narrow street between two dilapidated buildings. The portal grows ever wider, the screaming grows ever louder, and Draco is not sure if the line can hold—

"Am I the only one concerned how _fucking weird this is?_"

It's Potter, picking a few fallen children up from the pavement, ducking and dodging the tendrils of shadow.

"Put a lid on it, Potter, and grab an encyclopedia!"

"_DOWN!_"

It's the Doctor's voice, and Draco doesn't even need to look – when the Doctor shouts "down," he knows well enough to get down. He hits the pavement, and far above their heads, a second bomb goes soaring through the air.

"Down, down, down!" Tamika says. "_Impact positions!_"

The sound that follows is nothing short of cataclysmic. The screaming stops for a moment, then intensifies; if it was anger before, it is now nothing but pain.

The earth shakes, the portal wails, but the tendrils recede. One by one, they slip back into portal, quavering as though in pain.

The cheer begins immediately. The book club army triumphantly swings their books over their heads, and the call of victory echoes around Night Vale.

Draco stares deliriously into the portal, still prone on the pavement. He is not sure what just happened, but it was inexplicably awe-inspiring.

But the longer he stares at the portal—

"Draco Malfoy!" Tamika Flynn says. "On your feet! The portal is shrinking."

Harry is at his side, grabbing his wrist and hauling him up.

The Doctor is at his other side a moment after that. "The creature on the other side must have been holding it open," he says.

"You must follow the song, Draco Malfoy," Tamika says, "Harry Potter. Or perhaps you must allow the song to follow you."

Cecil emerges, a large hardback picture book tented over his head like a helmet.

"Go now!" Tamika cries. Draco can see the portal shrinking, shrinking, down now to the size of a large house. "Find the meaning in the chaos!"

"We should," Harry pants. "We should. We have to follow it. We'll never know if we don't."

Draco looks frantically to Tamika, to Cecil, up at Erika, still hovering in the air. He doesn't want to go just yet – does it have to end so quickly? There's so much he would say to them, so much he wants—

"I programmed my number into your phone when you weren't looking," Cecil says.

Draco laughs deliriously.

"Maybe you'll agree to do an interview on my radio show sometime, so you can give your version of events?" he says. "I operate a community radio program, you see—"

"There's no time!" Tamika says. The portal is now the size of a large shed. "Go!"

"Come on!" the Doctor says, grabbing Harry and Draco by one arm, and they go running forward through the portal, chasing after some meaning in the chaos—


	11. Void Song

"I don't think I ever asked," comes a familiar voice from the comforting darkness of the ship, "do you actually sleep?"

He turns away from the window. "You know impressively little about basic Vulcan physiology, Captain."

"I must have slept through that class." Kirk winks at him, a gesture that Spock does not entirely understand, but he has learned not to think about these things too deeply. There is rarely any point to it.

"Vulcan metabolism is superior to that of a human's, generally speaking," Spock answers, looking back to the window. "We can go up to two weeks without requiring sleep."

"But you do sleep," Kirk says.

"Generally, Captain, yes. On a similar schedule to yours."

"So then what brings you out here so late?"

Spock does not answer immediately. He stares for a while through the glass, at the array of stars laid out before them.

"Enjoying the view?" Kirk continues when Spock doesn't answer. "What's so special about this view, compared to all the others?"

"I would ask you if you see it, Captain, but in general I do not ask questions to which I already know the answers. You do not see it. I do not see it. But I can perceive it."

"Perceive what?"

"You must look at the negative space," Spock says. "There, to the left."

Kirk stares thoughtfully at the area for a while. It takes him a moment before he says—

"Oh! A black hole!"

It is little more than a subtle, almost imperceptible void in the blackness, visible only by the stars that are not there.

"Yes," Spock says. "By our scans, supermassive."

"That explains why Scotty was whining about energy consumption," Kirk says. "We'll have to refuel sooner than we would have liked.

"I have always harbored a certain fascination with black holes," Spock confesses, moving a bit closer to the window. "The impossible physics that are so necessary in explaining the fundamental laws of the universe, the strange metaphors to be drawn out of a thing so massive and destructive but so cold and imperceptible."

"Sentimentality," Kirk teases.

"Not at all, Captain, just interest," Spock says.

Something catches Spock's eye. It is subtle, almost beyond notice. A flash, a flicker, and then it is gone again. Spock stares at the darkness where it used to be, frowning.

"I suppose if a Vulcan is going to be sentimental about anything," Kirk says, "it may as well be a black hole."

"Captain," Spock says.

"There's no shame in being a little sentimental, you know," Kirk says. "I'm just as fond of your human half as I am of your Vulcan half—"

"Captain," Spock says, "the black hole seems to be getting bigger."

Kirk frowns. "What? How can you tell?"

"I saw gravitational lensing," Spock says. "Just for an instant. A star warped and then vanished. The event horizon is getting larger."

"Some black holes do have a natural breath, as it were," Kirk reminds him.

"I have been watching this black hole for several hours now and have not yet till now an instance of lensing," Spock says. "I think we should run another scan on it."

Before Spock can answer, there is a great rattling, subtle but pervasive. The _Enterprise_ seems to shudder for a moment; the lights flicker, then there's nothing.

"Well, when you put it that way."

"I'll go wake Commander Scott," Spock says. "I imagine we'll need his input."

* * *

—and they land hard, on metal this time instead of gravel, which is not much of an improvement considering the way Draco's head hits it.

"What is it about this energy and throwing us around?" Harry groans. He'd landed harder than Draco, on his side on a steel grate floor. Draco pushes himself off the war and heads over, grabbing both his hands and pulling him up.

Draco doesn't notice it until they're close enough, but there is a physical sort of crackling where his skin meets Harry's – almost like static, but stronger, and less painful. It's almost pleasant, like a soft vibration.

Harry looks at their hands, still joined, then back up at Draco.

"Is that…?" Harry begins.

"I don't know."

"Boys?"

Draco isn't sure if he should let go, but finds that he rather doesn't want to. By the look on his face, Harry's going through the same thoughts, and his eyes meet Draco's, and his heart aches.

"What's wrong? What's that sound?"

Draco forces himself to look away, if only because continuing to stare at Harry will probably kill him.

"What sound?" he asks, drawing his hands away.

The Doctor immediately looks to Draco's hands as he tucks them into his vest pockets. "Do that again," he says.

"You felt it, too," Harry says to him.

Draco frowns. "I – yes, I felt it." He reaches out again, reluctantly, and Harry grips his hands with a strength that surprises him, like he's not intending to let go this time around. Draco feels the energy again, crackling and shivering between them.

"I haven't been able to sense the energy so far," the Doctor says, "but _this_…"

The Doctor crouches down and produces his sonic screwdriver, buzzing it along from Draco's wrist to Harry's. Its thin buzz seems to sputter and protest.

"This I can _hear_," the Doctor says. "It's outside the range of human hearing, but it's there when you make skin-on-skin contact. An energy moving at such a high velocity that its mere through air is causing the particles to interact and create sound…"

"What does that mean?" Draco asks him.

The Doctor's screwdriver goes silent. He straightens, stares down at their still-clasped hands.

"It means," the Doctor says, "that we are very, very close to the source of energy. You react to each other, and it reacts to you. It's now starting to react with more intensity."

"Okay," Harry says. "And, uh – where is it we are, exactly?"

It's a good question. They seem to have landed in some sort of engine room, quiet and dark, lit with low blue footlights, with a large machine whirring overhead.

The Doctor looks at him in surprise, as though he hadn't considered the question. He looks away and up around him, assessing whatever machine hangs from the high ceiling.

"Federation vessel!" the Doctor says, spinning on a heel to look around the whole, wide, cool room. "Mid 2200s, if I had to take an educated guess."

"What's the Federation?"

"It's one of the first things you lot do as soon as you get to the stars," the Doctor says. "By which I mean the collective 'you,' of course – the human race. You band together, and make a systematic exploration of the universe. Among other things."

"So this is a spoiler." Draco pulls his hands away from Harry's, turning away from him this time, because he can't look at Harry anymore, he just can't, it hurts more than Draco ever imagined it would.

"Well, it's not like either of you would ever reach this point in your natural lives," the Doctor says. "I've been very careful to avoid that sort of thing."

"How noble of you," Draco says.

The Doctor moves further into the engine room, walking slowly and taking in everything. "A top-of-the-line vessel, for its time," the Doctor says, moving into the darkness. "And someone's done a bit of jerryrigging, though not in the bad way…"

"Can we give each other credit for trying?" Harry asks.

His voice is too soft for the Doctor to hear, as he is, by then, on the far side of the room. Draco sighs and looks back at him.

"Trying what, Potter?"

"Trying to be decent to each other."

"Can we give each other credit for trying to be decent to each other?" Draco looks away from him. "I don't know. Can we?"

"I don't know."

"Well, there you are, then."

"I want to."

"What we want seems to have precious little to do with it."

"I really want to. I want to untangle all of this so badly it hurts. You don't deserve this and neither do I."

And even though the sentiment is sweet in itself, Draco can only find it grating. "Stop being such a sop, Potter. Platitudes never solved anything."

Harry grits his teeth. "It should not be so difficult to decide if I wan to punch you or fuck you."

Draco turns away again, sharply, so he doesn't let his expression betray his thoughts, and sets to follow the Doctor.

Which turns out to be a bad idea, because once he makes it into the shadow of an overhanging platform and his eyes adjust, he finds the Doctor with a gun pressed to his head.

"Well," Draco says. "Forgive me for not being surprised, Doctor, but quite a lot of our little escapades are tending to start this way lately."

The gun – or at least it looks like a gun, from what limited knowledge Draco has of Muggle weaponry – is shiny and sleek chrome, its barrel glowing pale yellow. It is being held by a tall, dark-haired man with sharp eyes and deadly focus.

"Name and affiliation," he says to Draco without preamble.

"Draco Malfoy, and him."

"Everything is fine," the Doctor says. "Everything is absolutely fine."

"He's not a threat," Draco says. "Not to anyone on board this ship, at least."

"Forgive me for choosing not to believe you," says the man with the gun to the Doctor's head. "How did you gain the access codes to a Federation vessel?"

"We didn't," Draco says. "We had no idea we were going to be here, to be honest."

There comes a sudden rumbling, a sort shaking that pervades everywhere. Draco takes in a sharp breath; he feels the same sort of thrumming under his skin, the one he felt moments ago with Harry's hand in his. The energy is coming from somewhere else – somewhere on or near the ship.

"What is that?" Spock says suddenly, eyes sweeping suddenly from the Doctor to Draco, who still feels the subtle vibration running along his nerves. "What's that sound?"

"You can hear it, too," the Doctor says, grinning widely. "Of course you can. You're Vulcan, aren't you? Your range of hearing is even better than mine."

"What is creating that sound?" Spock answers, voice sharp and businesslike, though he doesn't lower the gun from the Doctor's head.

"Don't know yet," the Doctor answers honestly, "but I'll tell you what, I'm one of the only people on this ship who can help you figure it out."

Draco keeps wary watch of him, not sure whether or not it's safe for him to move. He can still feel the energy, until the rumbling of the ship stops, and it gradually fades.

"We want to know what it is, too," the Doctor says to Spock. "We've gone halfway across the universe to find the answer to that question."

"You are illegally on board a Federation vessel," Spock says, as though reluctantly coming to a decision. "You cannot be trusted until you have been more thoroughly question. The captain will deal with you."

Spock wrenches one of the Doctor's hands behind his back, then the other.

"Right," the Doctor says. "I mean, fair enough."

"You, as well," Spock says, and Draco holds up his hands in deference. Spock fastens his wrist together with a sleek, black something that neither feels quite like metal nor like plastic. Whatever it is, it does a good job of holding his hands together.

When Draco is turned around, he has a great view of Harry, being escorted down the walkway. His hands are also up, and he also has a gun to his head, this tim held by a scruffy-looking man with a frown.

"Oy, Spock," he says, "I went looking for the data files and I found this instead."

"As have I, Commander Scott," Spock says. "We'll be taking them up to see the Captain."

* * *

For how businesslike everyone had been thus far, Draco can say with some confidence that he hadn't been expecting a captain quite like James Kirk. Draco has been around enough to know when he's been undressed by a set of eyes, and Captain Kirk is stripping him bare within seconds of meeting him.

"Well," he says, speaking to Spock but keeping his eyes on Draco, "I send you down to get Scotty and you come back with a gorgeous blonde. Well done."

Draco smirks.

"Captain," Spock says, not rising to the bait, "these three were caught in the engine room. It has yet to be ascertained how they got on board."

"Accident," the Doctor assures him.

"I'm sure," Captain Kirk says. "I mean, people accidentally end up on Federation vessels all the time."

"No, they don't," Draco says.

"No, they don't," Kirk agrees, "but you're quite cute, so if it makes you feel better…"

"My name is the Doctor," says the Doctor. "This is Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. And I promise, we did not mean to stow away on your ship."

"We're not armed," Draco says.

"Is that an invitation to frisk you?"

"Cheeky," Draco says, smirking.

"What can I say? I have a weakness for blondes."

"I can tell, funnily enough."

"Easy, _Captain_," Harry says, not without some measure of venom.

"Well, now I know which one of you to invite to a party."

"Captain," Spock sighs.

"All right," Kirk says, "you didn't mean to end up on the _Enterprise_. Then how did you get here?"

"A portal," the Doctor answers at once.

"A portal," Kirk repeats. "A wormhole?"

"No, a spaciotemporal static rift."

Kirk frowns. "Those are theoretical at best."

"Apparently not, Captain," the Doctor says, "because less than an hour ago, we were outside this universe."

"That is also not possible," Kirk says.

The rattling kicks up again, stronger than before, and the electricity just under Draco's skin becomes so strong that he sways in his spot. He nearly collapses but for Spock, still behind him, whose quick reaction time catches him before he collapses.

"There's that rattling again," says Scotty, looking around the bridge. The thousand screens flicker slightly, their images trembling as though hit with a surge, before it returns back to normal.

"What connection do you have with these energy fluctuations?" Spock asks Draco sharply.

"It's not just him," the Doctor says, "it's both of them. Harry and Draco. They're tangled up in the same energy that the rift was attached to, the energy that led us here."

"Captain," Spock says, "the same resonance is coming from them as is coming from the rest of the ship during the energy fluctuations. It's outside your normal range of hearing, but I can sense it."

"So they have something to do with the black hole," Kirk says.

"Black hole?" Draco asks, frowning.

"Black hole," the Doctor says, then again, louder, "_black hole!_ Harry – you said it back on Azeroth – a siren!"

"I, uh," Harry begins, "yes, but what does that—"

"Oh, my God," Draco says, and it's all suddenly fitting together in his head, "a siren. It's been a siren all along."

"What?" Kirk says.

"A being far away from civilization that lures wayward travelers to their doom with an inexorable pull," Draco says, and Harry suddenly stands up straighter. "The kraken in Azeroth, the portal in Night Vale—"

"But a black hole is a _physical_ pull," Harry says, "it's _gravity_. How can it—"

"It's just translated differently," the Doctor says, "like how energy can manifest as lightning or as a lightbulb. Channelled correctly, that pull can be in all different sorts of forms."

"So that song," Harry says, "the one that's been chasing us through the universe – it was coming from a black hole? The one near this ship?"

"Scotty," Kirk says, "did you run the diagnostic on that black hole?"

"Aye, Captain," Scotty says, finally tearing his eyes away from the conversation. "It's – Commander Spock is right, of course – it doesn't have the standard patterns of a black hole."

"Bring it up on screen."

Scotty moves toward the side of the room. Spock had called it the bridge, which Draco thinks is a rather sub-par name, because it looks like a command center. It's wide and hemispherical, with one large window open to the stars and an imposing captain's chair surrounded by various command stations. Scotty heads to one char in particular on the right side and starts tapping at the screen. After a moment, the view of the stars fades and it is replaced with a three-dimensional diagram, slowly rotating.

"I adjusted the color for visibility," Scotty says. Draco supposes it is a black hole, though he would be the first to admit that he had no point of reference. It takes the shape of a perfect sphere, bright blue in the diagram, though the size of it is dwarfed by a much larger swirl of white and violet and cerulean.

"So this is what's just outside the _Enterprise_?" Kirk says.

"Aye, Captain."

"We've docked near black holes before," Kirk says. "Usually we're more than capable of staying in an orbit around them."

"Aye, Captain," Scotty says again, "but Spock was right – this one is different." He taps the screen again, and the diagram adjusts. Waves of white and red come arcing out from the center in broad strokes. All at once, everyone in the room leans forward.

"What _is_ that?" asks Harry, the first to break the silence.

"That," Scotty says, "to the best of my knowledge, is anduen energy."

"Anduen energy?" Spock says. "There hasn't been any documented anduen energy in the universe since the first picoseconds if its existence."

"Which is why I ran the numbers twice," Scotty says. "And then three times, then four times. It has all the hallmarks of anduen energy – or at the very least, what anduen energy is theorized to be."

"Shit," the Doctor says suddenly. "Oh, this isn't good."

"Commander Scott," Spock says, "I don't think I need to explain to you just how _volatile_ anduen energy is."

"No, Commander, you don't."

"There's a reason much of it dissipated within the first picosecond of the universe's expansion," Spock continues. "It's completely unstable."

"And yet here it is," Scotty continues, "being expelled in great volumes from a black hole that should, by all rights, be absorbing it instead."

"Anduen energy," the Doctor says softly. "That…"

"Doctor?" Harry asks. "What's anduen energy?"

"My people," the Doctor begins, haltingly, "we sort of – I won't say we created it, but we were the first to work with it."

Harry frowns. "What does it do?"

"It does – well, it does a lot of things, but the interesting question isn't what it _does_," he says. "The interesting question is where it _comes_ from."

"Okay," Draco obliges, "then where does it come from?"

"From potential energy," the Doctor says.

"That's an oversimplification," Spock answers, slowly.

"Yes, it is," the Doctor agrees, "but we don't have time for a physics lecture, Commander Spock, because if that black hole is really expelling that much anduen energy, that means it very, very dangerous."

"On that, at least, we agree," Spock says, and he turns to Captain Kirk. "Captain, this black hole exists between two very populated galaxies. If it continues to grow at the rate Commander Scott's measurements predict, it could swallow both of them."

"It could swallow a whole lot more than that," the Doctor says lowly. "There's enough potential energy in that thing to destroy the entire supercluster, if not more."

Kirk sinks into the captain's chair and begins to drum his fingers slowly on its arm. "Okay," he says after a minute. "So does anyone have any ideas on how to switch off a black hole?"

"Well," Scotty says, "I don't know about that, but I think I may have a place to start."

The three-dimensional diagram flickers again; zooms in. Near the outer edge of the event horizon, there is a blip. A small blip, just a little flicker of gray on the white.

Kirk leans forward. "What is that?"

"It's a moon."

"A _moon?_" Kirk repeats.

"By most definitions, yes," Scotty says. "It's a satellite of the black hole, held in what I can only describe as a slightly impossible geostationary orbit. I'm not sure why it's not falling in, but it seems to be expelling nearly half of the anduen energy."

"Captain," the Doctor says, suddenly and urgently moving forward, "I don't mean to sound presumptuous, but you _need_ me."

"Well, it sounds presumptuous," Kirk says.

"Whatever's on that planet – whatever's in that black hole – it's connected to Draco and Harry. You need them to illuminate that connection, and you need me to interpret it. This siren song has been following us across the _universe_. Millions of light-years and great cosmic ages of time. They're the only chance at divining its nature, and I'm the only chance at stopping it."

Kirk rolls his tongue along his teeth in thought.

"Spock," he says after a moment, "thoughts?"

Spock doesn't answer immediately. His gaze moves from Draco, to Harry, and lingers on the Doctor.

"If I may ask, Doctor," Spock says, "what species are you?"

The Doctor pauses. It looks as though he hadn't quite been expecting the question, and for a moment, he has no answer.

After a moment, he raises his chin slightly. "You won't believe me."

"I may surprise you."

The Doctor glances to Kirk, then back to Spock.

"I'm a Time Lord."

Spock takes a half-step back in astonishment.

"Spock?" Kirk says, frowning.

"Your kind are legend," Spock says as though he hadn't heard his captain.

"Apparently not," the Doctor says.

"Captain," Spock says, "Vulcan children are raised on the myths of Time Lords. The children of Gallifrey who died in a great war billions of years ago."

The Doctor's face is impassive. Draco frowns and looks to the Doctor. He had heard about the Time War, though not via any direct admission from the Doctor. Draco recognizes the expression on his face – the subtle creases around his mouth that speak of carefully controlled emotion.

"The masters of time and space, whose fingers extended throughout all the universe, all but unnoticed, like ghosts."

"You know it's serious when a Vulcan starts speaking in poetics," Kirk says, in a valiant effort to defuse the tension. He rises out of his captain's chair and heads to Spock's side. They are both now staring at the Doctor. "Do you believe him?"

"You can mind-meld with me," the Doctor suggests coolly.

"I do not dare," Spock answers at once. "A Time Lord's mind would be… incomprehensible to me. Dangerous, even."

"So you believe him?"

"I…"

"His pulse, then," Draco suggests to him. Spock glances to him. "Two hearts."

Spock nods once. "The pulse point of a binary vascular system would… yes."

"I'm not used to seeing you nervous, Spock," Kirk says, voice low.

Spock moves forward hesitantly. The Doctor watches him, still and silent, as he presses two fingers to the side of the Doctor's throat.

There follow several seconds of silence. Spock retracts his fingers, takes several steps back.

"How are you alive?" Spock asks him.

"I've asked myself that same question a fair few times," the Doctor says.

"Spock?" Kirk says. "What do you think?"

"I think…" He takes a moment to collect himself. It does not look like an easy thing, but he manages it. "The mythos of the Time Lords varied across the universe. Among other races, they were known as terrible warriors; in Vulcan society, they were great stewards of space-time. Which are you, Doctor? What is the truth in the legend?"

"We were both," the Doctor answers. "And quite a bit more besides. But if there's anything you can take comfort in, it's the presence of these two."

The Doctor looks toward Draco and Harry – and then, so is everyone else on the bridge.

"I love these two more than I can possibly express," the Doctor says. "They've been my friends and companions for a long time. So you can keep me around, knowing that you have me on a very short leash."

Spock is silent a moment.

"I have to figure out why that black hole is spouting anduen energy, because it poses a direct threat to them," the Doctor says. "And I can't let anything happen to them."

"Captain," Spock says, "I think we should trust him."

* * *

"I didn't know the Doctor's people died in a war," Harry says to him.

Draco glances briefly over his shoulder, away from the Doctor, who is arguing animatedly with Scotty and Spock. He looks forward again a moment later.

"He never talks about it," Draco says. "Though he nearly did, once or twice. He always stopped short. I suppose it's not our place to know."

"Maybe," Harry says, sounding unconvinced. "Do they know what the plan is?"

"They're arguing about it now. Either way, I have a sneaking suspicion that we're going to end up on that planet in geostationary orbit around the black hole."

"That sounds insane."

"Yes, it does," Draco says, "so I assume it has your full support."

Harry frowns. Draco turns and raises both eyebrows.

"You're the reigning champ of stupid and terrible plans."

"See, that was funny," Harry says, "and my mind acknowledges it as funny, but I can't hear it as anything but extremely glib and obnoxious."

"You're not even doing anything right now and I want to punch you in the face," Draco admits.

"Great, thanks for sharing," Harry says. "Is this the anduen energy?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe it's just that your face is particularly punchable right now."

"I admit that it does have a certain punchable aspect to it," Kirk says, suddenly appearing behind Draco and clapping him on the back, "but I've seen far worse examples. How are you, Draco?"

"Could be worse, Captain," Draco answers, "though in fairness, I could be a lot better, too."

"Well, right now, the three smartest people on this ship are arguing about what to do," Kirk says, gesturing to the far side of the room, where Spock, Scotty, and the Doctor are still bickering, "and I've worked with less preparation than that. I don't think I got to say it's nice to meet you, by the way."

Kirk offers Draco a hand and a winning smile. Draco raises an eyebrow, grins, and takes it – but, quite to his surprise, receives a kiss on the knuckle instead of a handshake.

"Well, aren't you just a charmer," Draco says.

"James Tiberius Kirk," he says, "since we were never properly introduced. Captain of the _USS Enterprise_ and a ranking officer of Starfleet."

"All right," Harry interjects, half-growling, "take it easy."

"Draco Lucius Malfoy," Draco plays along, because he finds that there is nothing more entertaining than making Harry Potter angry, "current Baron Malfoy. Well, current from my perspective at least."

"An English Lord!" Kirk says. "How vintage."

"Aboard the ship of a young, handsome captain," Draco says. "Add in a few more adjectives and we could be two protagonists in a romance novel."

"Please stop," Harry says.

"Am I upsetting your boyfriend?" Kirk asks.

"He's not my boyfriend," Harry and Draco answer, nearly at the same time.

"Not your boyfriend as in not your boyfriend, or as in _not your boyfriend?_" Kirk asks. "There is a distinction."

"Malfoy," Harry says, "he's not even your type."

"And just what would you know about my type, Potter?" he asks, turning to lock him with a challenging glare.

"I have some first hand experience," Harry answers without missing a beat, and it makes Draco glare all the harder. Memories of heat and pressure and wet, desperate kisses rise unbidden to the surface of his mind, and though he tries to will them away, they stay firmly and obnoxiously in place.

Draco is not sure how it's possible for him to be so impossibly in love with Harry Potter while simultaneously wanting to beat him bloody with a bludger bat.

"Right," Kirk says after the silence goes on a bit too long. "Well. Let's check on how far along our geniuses are in the negotiation process."

Draco looks away from Harry, glad for, if nothing else, the distraction.

Draco follows Kirk to the other side of the room – they're no longer in the bridge, but a small, laboratory-like room not far from the engines – and come within ear shot in time to hear Scotty, exasperated, cry—

"—no _atmosphere_, barely any _gravity_ – not the kind you'd _want_, anyway—"

"You have space suits, don't you?" the Doctor asks. "What kind of Starfleet vessel would this be without space suits?"

"We have space suits, Doctor," Spock says, "but I think Scotty's point is that it would be nonsensical to assume that they would be enough to protect you from the sheer amount of expelled energy."

"Anduen energy has minimal effects on most lifeforms. I've been living and walking in it for ages now," the Doctor says, gesturing to Harry and Draco as they approach. "And I'm beginning to suspect that they were _born_ into it."

"It may not have any physiological effects," Scotty says, "but that doesn't mean it's not dangerous. You said yourself that your people have studied it extensively, Doctor. You should know that anduen energy only exists when there is potentia of _universe-bending massiveness_."

"Potentia?" Draco asks.

"Chaotic physics parlance," Spock explains. "The energy that could potentially be developed from an otherwise insignificant act."

"If this black hole is – as you said, Doctor – calling out to your two friends, here, from across the universe, then _clearly_ there is a mind-boggling amount of potentia involved. Enough to switch off the sun, enough to rip the fabric of space-time! If you go messing around with it—"

"I've dealt with worse," the Doctor says.

"Is he kidding?" Scotty asks Spock, before turning back to the Doctor. "Are you kidding?"

"Look, if you don't want to risk the lives of your crew, I understand," the Doctor says. "Then just send me down alone."

"I'm not letting you go anywhere alone," Harry says at once, which seems to abruptly derail the Doctor's train of thought. "That affection you mentioned isn't a one-way street, Doctor. We're in this together."

Draco smiles. Harry is wrong and stupid about a lot of things, but not this. "Together," he agrees.

The Doctor's edges all soften at once. He smiles at them and reaches a hand to clap onto Harry's shoulder.

"Spock, you're the one with the entire Starfleet ethics code memorized," Kirk says. "Would that be against any protocol?"

"Are you suddenly concerned about protocol, Captain?" Spock asks, voice humorously neutral.

Kirk grins. "Spock, are you being sarcastic? Proud of you."

"It is inadvisable to allow non-Starfleet personnel planetside with Starfleet equipment," Spock continues. "However, given that they are not officially behind treated as _persona non grata_, there is a certain amount of discretion involved in such decisions."

"They'll get themselves killed if they go down there, Captain," Scotty says.

"We have a very good track record so far of not dying," the Doctor says.

"That is true of literally everyone in the universe right up until it isn't," Scotty returns, voice only slightly shrill.

"We do have a duty to determine the source of the energy, given the potential of what it can do," Kirk says.

"We can run more scans," Scotty says, progressively more shrill. "We can send a probe!"

"Spock, chances of technology telling us everything we need to know?"

Spock cants his head to one side, eyes trailing upwards as he goes over the outcomes. "Marginal," he says. "Possible, but difficult. It would likely require specialized equipment and would be very time-consuming to build."

"Captain!" Scotty says, now sounding quite shrill.

"You don't have to go, Scotty," Kirk says. "In fact, I don't want you to. I'd rather you stay here, where your skill set is most valuable."

"Are you going?" Draco asks him, surprised.

"How could I say no?" Kirk asks. "Huge amount of danger, high stakes, and a gorgeous blonde accomplice? It's everything I like most about being captain of the _Enterprise_."

"Will I be accompanying you, Captain?" Spock asks.

"Only if you want to," Kirk says. "God knows I can't order you to do something so dangerous."

"You do not need to order me," Spock says. "I'll go."

Kirk beams. The Doctor takes in a deep breath.

"Right," he says. "When do we leave?"

* * *

The _Enterprise_ is, as it turns out, far larger than Draco imagined it would be. They have to travel quite a distance to get to a massive docking station at the underbelly of the ship. Wherever they go, those around them snap to quick salutes and offer a brief, perfunctory _Captain_.

The space suits are not exactly what Draco was expecting, based on his limited, Wikipedia-based knowledge of the moon landing, though perhaps that shouldn't surprise him. They are made from lean, flexible black material with an impressive durability. It seems three sizes too small until Draco steps into it and it effortlessly expands to fit snugly around his body.

"With Captain Unresolved Tension over there," Kirk says from behind, "I suppose this is as close as I'll get to seeing you naked."

Draco turns. Kirk is already fully outfitted, with a small black helmet under his arm. He's leaning against the door frame far too nonchalantly for a peeping tom.

"If your only goal is to make Harry Potter jealous," Draco says, decisively zipping up the side of his suit, "then there are far more efficient ways."

"Oh, I'm _sure_," Kirk says. "I can think of _several_. That an invitation?"

Draco's smirk fades, though hopefully not enough to give it all away. He steps into a pair of glossy, black metal boots that should not be as comfortable as they turn out to be. "Sorry," he says.

"You don't have to apologize," Kirk says, "I can handle rejection. Even if it is from a blonde bombshell. May I ask why?"

Draco snaps the metal locks on the boot into place.

"May I take a guess?"

Draco glances at him, fairly sure that his smirk is mostly gone.

"Is it because you're in love with him?"

Draco wets his lips, averts his eyes. "What gave it away?"

"It's pretty obvious," Kirk admits.

"Not to him."

Kirk pauses.

"Ouch," is his eventual reaction.

"It's all right," Draco says. "By his own admission, the most emotion he can muster for me is not hate. So I figure at this point, it's my own fault."

"If we could pick who we fall for, my life would be a lot easier."

Draco tugs on the long leather gloves – or at least they feel like leather, though he suspects they're probably not – and turns to Kirk.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better," Kirk says, eyeing the ensemble, "he is clearly missing one _hell_ of an opportunity."

"I'd like to think so. Is everyone ready?"

"Should be, by now," Kirk says, and they exit from the equipment room and back into the docking station. "You know, he may not be in love with you, but he's most definitely jealous of my flirting with you."

"We fucked once," Draco says. "He misses it."

"Don't penalize him for that. I would, too."

"Gentlemen," Draco calls as soon as they're within earshot. The Doctor, Harry, and Spock are all in space suits like Draco's. Scotty isn't far, still in his uniform, speaking urgently with Spock. "Are we ready?"

"Commander Scott was just briefing us on what we can expect," Spock says.

"We're getting strange life signs from the surface of the moon, Captain," Scotty says, after offering a brief salute.

"Life signs?" Kirk repeats. "I thought you said it didn't have an atmosphere."

"It doesn't," Scotty says, "which makes the life signs slightly worrying."

"It is advisable that we come armed, Captain," Spock says. "It seems unlikely that a phaser would kill anything that can survive without an atmosphere, but it is always better to err on the side of caution."

"Phasers it is," Kirk says, walking toward the nearby wall and affixed weapons rack. "Do our three guests want one?"

"Draco and I have—" Harry pauses, starts again. "We don't need them."

"And I prefer a screwdriver," the Doctor says.

"Suit yourself," Kirk says, tossing a second phaser to Spock.

"We can't beam you down onto the surface," Scotty says, "due to the anduen energy interfering with our equipment. So you'll have to take a cruiser down. And Captain…"

Kirk tucks the phaser into a holster built onto the hip of his space suit. He arcs an eyebrow at Scotty.

"Those lifeforms," Scotty says, slowly, "there are a _lot_ of them."

"A lot like how many?"

"A lot like several million."

"Jesus."

"So if you don't mind," Scotty continues, "please try not to die."

"Well, I was going to run blindly face-first into death, but since you asked—"

"Captain," Scotty says severely.

"All right, all right. I'll be careful. Relax, I'll be with Spock. He's good at keeping me in check."

"Your cruiser is ready, Captain," says a voice from behind, a functionary by the look of him, in a nondescript uniform.

"Thank you," Kirk says. "Well, boys. Let's see what's on this impossible moon."

Without meaning to, Draco looks to Harry. Harry is looking back at him, and even though he wants to, he can't look away until they all start moving for the cruiser.

* * *

The trip down is unusually, unsettlingly quiet. The cruiser is a small, sleek vessel, and it moves through space like a knife through soft butter. On the inside, it is small and utilitarian, not designed with comfort in mind, but it's enough. Spock, Kirk, and the Doctor speak quietly at the front while Spock pilots.

Draco and Harry sit in the back, silent and unmoving. And Harry will not stop staring at him.

Draco finds the staring both obnoxious and annoying, and eventually he can't help but say—

"Potter, you've already seen me naked. I don't know what you think you're staring at."

It's not subtle, granted, but it has the desired effect – Harry jerking upright in the seat across from him and finally looking away, in sudden embarrassment.

"Jesus, Malfoy," he says. "Keep it down, will you?"

"Why? Ashamed?"

"No," he says through grit teeth.

"That's the most yes-like no I've ever heard."

"I'm not ashamed. I just don't want to advertise – never mind. Malfoy, you'll be careful, won't you?"

"I'm always careful."

"That is demonstrably untrue." The cruiser engines rattle. "We don't know what we're getting into with this. The answers to these questions may be dangerous to come by."

"Are you _worried_ about me, Potter?"

"Goddammit, Malfoy," he says, sounding more defeated than angry, "some part of me has been worried about you since I told you to fuck off when we were both eleven."

Draco is not sure how to respond to that.

"That feeling's been tangled up in my desire to punch you in the face ever since."

"Thanks for sharing," Draco says icily.

"I'm not trying to start a fight," Harry answers.

"You never are. Neither of us ever are."

The silence that follows says far more than either of them could articulate. Draco looks away, out the narrow slat of window. Through the darkness, he can make out a black, rocky moon slowly growing as they rumble toward it.

"I hope this changes something," Harry said. "I want to be able to like you. Or at least I want to make up my mind about you. You deserve that much."

Draco finds he has nothing to say to that. Even if he did, he wouldn't want to say it.

"Smooth landing," Kirk says softly, and the moon dominates ever more of Draco's field of vision. They sweep lower and lower.

Draco begins to make out shapes in the darkness. At first they look like massive, rocky outcroppings, sticking out from the surface at strange angles, but as they come down toward the surface, he starts to make out more distinct, recognizable shapes.

"What…"

Draco turns so he's facing the window properly.

"What _are_ those?" Kirk asks, apparently seeing the same thing through the front viewpanel.

"If I had to make an educated guess, Captain," Spock says, "I'd say that those are the millions of life forms Commander Scott was speaking about."

And that's when Draco makes sense of the shapes. Not strange, bending rocks, but _limbs_. They are long and dark and spindly, extending out of gnarled torsos. They even have heads, bald and oblong as they are.

They are not moving, not even as the cruiser ghosts just above them. They remain as still as statues.

"They don't seem to be conscious," the Doctor says.

"I'd rather not take the risk," Kirk answers.

"I see a clearing to land," Spock says.

"Helmets on, boys," the Doctor says, and Draco grabs his from the adjacent seat, pulling it down over his head. It snaps into place.

"These suits allow for about three hours' worth of air," Kirk says as he puts on his own. He taps something on his forearm, and the words "COMM UNIT ONLINE" flash on the inside of Draco's helmet. When Kirk next speaks, it's directly into his ear. "But that will change depending on how hard you're breathing, so whenever you can, try to stay calm."

The cruiser lands with surprising gentleness, and Spock is shortly killing the engine and fastening his own helmet.

"Stick together," Kirk continues, "and let's follow the the readings to the source of the anduen energy."

"CABIN DEPRESSURIZING," the cruiser announces, shortly before there is a great hiss of escaping air.

"Be careful, boys," the Doctor says.

Draco stands. The large hatch door opens slowly.

The helmet mutes most sound, though Draco suspects that in this particular case there is nothing to muffle. It is absolutely barren, night-black, and still, and despite being around a not insignificant portion of the universe, Draco has never seen anything quite like it.

"North-northeast," Spock's voice says into his ear. Draco is the second to step down onto the rocky, uneven ground.

"Look at them," the Doctor says. As soon as he's off the cruiser, he's heading for the nearest figure. Now that Draco's closer, he can understand why he mistook it for a rock. Even up close, it is very rock-like. Beyond its eerie stillness, its skin is hard and dark, like cooled magma. It stands at least ten feet tall, its long limbs dragging on the ground, its mouth too-wide-open and full of vicious, sharp teeth.

"Ugly sons of bitches," Kirk says. "At least they're not moving."

"Doesn't mean they can't," the Doctor returns. "I've seen moving stone in my day. It's not as impossible as you might imagine."

"What are they?" Harry asks, reaching out and hesitantly touching one on what serves as its elbow. It does not react.

"Not easy to say," the Doctor answers, stopping beside him to get a better look at it. "There are lots of lifeforms resembling rocks, though I don't think I've ever seen any quite like these."

"The source of the anduen energy is close," Spock says. He's a few feet away, consulting a small, handheld device. "Less than a kilometer. If these… lifeforms aren't giving us any trouble, then let's do our best to keep it that way and move quickly."

The ground is perilously rocky, with dangerous outcroppings every few feet, tripping up their progress. It's a slow and unsteady journey, and Draco nearly loses his footing on more than one occasion.

"Wait," says the Doctor after a while of walking. "Do you hear that?"

"There's no atmosphere, Doctor," Spock says. "You shouldn't be able to hear anything."

"Maybe 'hear' isn't the right verb," the Doctor says, scanning the horizon. "It's like… it's like…"

"Look!"

Draco doesn't see what Kirk is pointing to at first, but eventually he can make it out – on a moon as still as death, there is a lone figure swaying slowly from side to side.

"Phasers," Kirk says immediately afterward. "Precautionary protocol, Spock."

Spock nods once, tucks away his handheld device and replaces it with his phaser. They continue their approach.

As they get closer, Draco begins to see the details. A large, gate-like thing glowing a very dull violet, and standing just outside it—

"Is that a woman?" Harry says.

It is. It can't be, but somehow it is. A tall, spindly woman with long silver hair, standing in a dress on the moon orbiting a black hole and swaying. There is something buzzing under Draco's skin.

"How is she—?" Draco begins.

"Don't know," the Doctor says. "Hello, there!"

The woman keeps swaying. She does not even turn to face them.

"I'm the Doctor," he continues, dauntless, "and this is Captain James Kirk, Commander Spock, Draco Malfoy, and Harry Potter. Do you have a moment?"

Still, the woman does not answer, nor stop swaying. Her long, black dress is caught in some sort of current, though Draco cannot imagine how.

"Hullo?" The Doctor advances, and Spock and Kirk hold their phasers at the ready.

"Spock said there's no atmosphere," Harry says, "so maybe she can't—"

And then, quite abruptly, she spins on a heel. Everyone takes a sudden step back.

Her skin is bone white, her eyes solid black. Though there are no pupils to guide him, Draco can only assume that she's staring directly at Harry.

"She is waiting for you."

It is a voice – it _must_ be a voice, it _feels_ like a voice – but Draco knows that it cannot possibly _be_ a voice. There is no air to move through her vocal chords, no atmosphere to carry the sound. But somehow Draco can hear her.

"Who is?" Harry asks, and Draco can see him pawing at his wand, strapped to his belt.

"The Singer in the Dark," the woman answers.

"And who are you?" Draco asks.

The woman's head spins eerily on her neck until her all-black eyes are focused on Draco. Draco feels another surge of the energy just under the surface of his skin.

"I am the gatekeeper," she answers. "A servant of the Singer."

"And that's the gate?" the Doctor asks slowly, gesturing to the large violet panel of _something_ behind her.

She does not turn to the Doctor. She stays focused on Draco. "The Singer has been waiting for you for many thousands of ages," she says. "And now here you are. You will go through."

"No, they won't," Kirk says.

"You will go through," the gatekeeper says, and the buzzing in Draco's skin intensifies. By the way Harry shudders, he can feel it, too.

"I think we should go through," Draco says.

The Doctor turns. His face is illuminated only by two beams of light within his helmet, highlighting the look of alarm. "Draco—"

"This – this _singer_," Draco says, "Doctor, she's been following us across the universe in various permutations. This is the gate to her. If nothing else, we deserve to hear what she has to say."

"This is the same singer who has been killing indiscriminately! The sailors in Azeroth, the librarian in Night Vale!" the Doctor says. "The same one with enough power to _rip open the fabric of space-time_."

"All the more reason not to piss her off," Harry says. The Doctor spins again.

"You can't think this is a good idea!" he says.

"No, it's a terrible idea," Draco readily agrees, "but do you have a better one?"

The Doctor is silent.

"You said it yourself, Doctor," Draco says. "We have to find out what this means. Not just for Harry's and my sake, but to make sure this space-time tearing power doesn't get used."

"_You will go through._"

The gatekeeper is speaking louder. The energy under Draco's skin is unbearable, and he grits his teeth.

"Doctor," Draco says, "it's really starting to hurt. We have to go now."

"Then I'm going with you!" the Doctor says frantically.

"Doctor…" Kirk says.

They did not hear it – they could not hear it – but when they turn, they can see it.

The great and terrible stone monsters are starting to move.

They roll their shoulders and snap their jaws, they flex their hands – and, all at the same time, they turn to face them.

"I don't think we have a choice," Draco says.

"I can't leave you to do this on your own!" the Doctor says.

"We won't be alone," Harry says. "We'll be together."

"_That doesn't make me feel better!_" The Doctor is sounding more and more frantic.

"The crew of the _Enterprise_ needs you, Doctor, a lot more than we do!"

"But I…!"

"Attack! Attack!"

Bursts of phaser fire. Draco isn't sure why until he turns again – _the statues are shambling toward them_.

"We have to go now!" Harry says.

"I can't just leave you!" the Doctor says, but Draco and Harry have already started past him. "No – please! We don't know what will be on the other side of that gate!"

Harry approaches. The gatekeeper stares. The great stone monsters clamber forward.

Draco looks from the monsters approaching, to Kirk and Spock engaged in battle, to the Doctor staring at them in fear and heartbreak.

"Then I'll call you when I get there and tell you!" Draco says, and he steps backwards through the gate.


	12. Swan Song

He wakes up.

Had he been asleep? For a moment, he can't quite remember. He flounders in his bed – his bed? He's in a bed – _his_ bed. Not just any bed, his _childhood_ bed, with the jade green comforter and white sheets. And this is his childhood room, complete with Hollyhead Harpies poster and cluttered desk.

There's sunlight streaming through the open window – it's summer, by the sounds and the lush, green Wiltshire vista.

He looks down at himself. He had half-expected himself to be in pajamas, but he's not. He's in a pinstripe vest, white Oxford shirt, and pleated pants, the same outfit he'd put on when he set out for—

—for the mission, the mission to the impossible moon.

Memories come rushing back rapid fire. A moment ago he had been on a moon orbiting a black hole. How had he gotten to his childhood room? Had the gate taken him back in time somehow?

He pushes off the covers and explores the area. It certainly feels like his childhood room. Everything seems fairly solid – the wood of the desk, the cool gray wallpaper. If this is some sort of virtual reality dreamworld, it's a very realistic one.

He turns the knob on the door and exits. He looks to the left, toward his parents' room – nothing. He looks to the right towards the stairs—

"Draco, there you are. Finally awake?"

Draco nearly falls over when he sees Lucius Malfoy coming up the hall, like a ghost of his distant past.

"Father—"

Is it even possible? Could he really be back in time, back to before his father died? Draco is all at once overwhelmed, completely unsure how to feel or what to think or contemplate how it's even _possible_ – but in any case, he does not have the time, because his father – or whatever is passing for his father – is not done speaking.

"You received an owl."

He stops across from Draco, holds the letter up. The envelope is open, starch white printer paper instead of yellowish parchment, and Draco suddenly remembers – that's a Muggle envelope, written on notebook paper.

"It's from Blaise Zabini," his father continues when Draco remains silent.

He remembers this conversation. With brutal clarity, he remembers it. Remembers the strange, thin white paper, remembers the odd blue lines on the paper, but most of all he remembers—

"The mudblood."

—most of all, he remembers that. This was the day his father told him not to associate himself with the likes of Blaise Zabini.

"What…" Draco begins, but he can't find his voice.

"I must say, Draco, that your choice of cohorts has been slipping. I had thought that we might raise you better than this."

"Father, is that really you?" Draco asks him, but he continues on as though he hadn't heard.

"Perhaps the subtleties of the power dynamics at play here are lost on you, Draco, so I will forgive this minor indiscretion," he says, closing the rest of the distance between them and slapping the letter against his shoulder, "but let me be perfectly clear: a visible, powerful family like ours must not be seen associating with the undesirables."

He knows this speech. It was burned into his memory. And even though Draco had been raised his whole life steeped in the bigoted vitriol out of which it spawned, this was the first time he had been forced to confront the reality of it, instead of the broad, theoretical implications. Muggles were bad. Muggle-Borns were bad. This was the first time that meant anything to him.

"I expect that you will not respond to Mr. Zabini," his father says, and Draco feels that terrible twist of anger and shame and resentment and confusion, like he is still eleven years old and still struggling to contextualize systemic oppression and why it meant he couldn't talk to Blaise.

His father leaves him standing silent in the hallway. The letter flutters to the ground. Draco remembers Blaise asking if he was going to come to London and whether or not he wanted to go to that ice cream shop Blaise mentioned. Draco would never respond.

And then, Draco is somewhere else.

* * *

Harry is on the Hogwarts Express, which seems strange, since just a few moments ago he'd been on a moon orbiting a black hole.

Ron is sitting across from him, talking animatedly about Quidditch. And he's small. _God_, he's small. Half the size in all three directions. Harry stares at him in astonishment and, as he tries to pin down what exactly is going on, the compartment door opens.

"Is it true?"

Harry turns. It's Draco Malfoy, just as small, and just as pale as in his memory, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle on either side."They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"

Harry suddenly know where he is – or to be more specific, _when_ he is. This is his very first train ride to Hogwarts. Not that Harry isn't used to time travel by now – far from it – but rather, he's not used to time travel quite this _personal_. After everything that's happened to him, seeing Draco Malfoy so small and fragile-looking is strange.

Harry notices a certain vulnerability on his face that he certainly hadn't seen when he was eleven years old. In the hindsight of a distant past, he remembers venom in every word, but he doesn't hear it now. Draco is looking at him with open curiosity.

"What the hell is going on," Harry says, but Draco responds as if he'd said 'yes.'

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle. And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

He steps in front of Harry. Harry remembers this moment with picture-perfect clarity. He remembers the immediate, intense dislike. The _je ne sais quoi_ in Malfoy's speech or countenance or affect that had so quickly made Harry decide that he was awful. Harry still feels it, nagging in the back of his throat, even though he's not seeing any of the haughtiness anymore.

Ron sniggers. Draco turns to him, and all at once the hackles raise. And even though logically Harry can't blame him for being a little self-conscious about a weird name like 'Malfoy,' he finds his defensiveness exactly as grating as he did when he was eleven.

"Think my name's funny, do you?" he asks, and Harry sees him sneer. The expression does not look natural on Draco's face. "No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

"What the _hell_ is going on," Harry repeats, since apparently they can't hear him.

Draco turns back to him. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort."

He holds out his hand. Harry stares at it in silent astonishment.

"I can help you there."

Harry feels tangled, a messy conflict of emotions. Had his intense and kneejerk dislike for Malfoy gone back this far? Had it been something more.

"Then I told you to fuck off," Harry says. "And you said…"

"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter. Unless you're a bit politer you'll go the same way as your parents."

And that was a vicious comment, so at odds with the open curiosity Harry had seen when he first stepped into the compartment. Harry suddenly wonders if the same force making Harry intensely dislike Draco had done the exact same to him.

"They didn't know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it'll rub off on you."

Crabbe and Goyle both look at him. They seem surprised. Harry wonders why he never noticed before.

Harry remembers the rest before it happens. Ron's threats, Draco's sneering, the candy theft, the brawl. Watching it as a grown man causes a strange and painful combination of nostalgia and embarrassment and pain. If only his eleven-year-old self knew how very little words would mean later.

And then, Harry is somewhere else.

* * *

Draco is in St. Mungo's and if looks could kill he would be bleeding on the marble floor. Every person in the waiting room is glaring at him, as though hoping that the heat of their anger might literally set him on fire.

Beside him, bowed over and weeping softly, is his mother. Her hair is tangled, her dress sagging off one shoulder. She looks frail, like she's close to collapsing.

Draco feels very cold. He knows where he is, and he cannot think of a single place in the universe he would less like to be.

In his pocket, his phone vibrates. At some point he must have put it on silent. He fumbles for it.

"Draco," his mother whispers hoarsely, and it has been so long since he's heard her voice that he nearly weeps at the sound of it. "Draco, how could this have happened…?"

His hands are shaking. Since apparently no one can hear him, he doesn't bother answering. The screen of his phone reads "TARDIS CALLING," and he slides to unlock. "Doctor?"

"Draco! Where are you?"

"I – I'm—"

"How could he have done this to us?"

"I don't know," Draco says, not sure who he's addressing.

"Do you hear anything?" the Doctor asks. "See anything?"

"I see my mother," he answers haltingly. "It looks… it looks like St. Mungo's, when…"

"St. Mungo's?" the Doctor repeats, baffled. "Why would a great bloody gateway on a rock orbiting a black hole take you to St. Mungo's?"

"It didn't – I don't think it's really St. Mungo's, Doctor. I think this is – this must be something else, I think it's making me relive memories."

"Memories?"

"My father…"

Right on cue, the double doors leading into the trauma ward open. His mother leaps to her feet and she rushes to the side of the doctor who emerges, but he looks at her like one might eye a crushed bug on the sole of one's shoe. Draco grips his phone a little harder, and he remembers wondering if he would ever be treated civilly in public again.

"Doctor," Draco says.

"Doctor," Narcissa begs, "what news?"

"I'm reliving the day my father killed himself."

"There was nothing we could have done," he says, and Draco watches – he can't _not_ watch – as all the lines on his mother's face fall apart, and she collapses.

And even though it's not real – it must not be real, it _can't_ be real – he dives to catch her, and she feels real in his arms.

"Mother," he says, eyes burning, but she doesn't answer; she's already unconscious, and Draco knows he'll never hear her voice again. "Mother!"

"Nurse," says the attending mediwizard, "let's get Mrs. Malfoy a bed."

And it's stupid, and it's foolish, and it's pointless, but he feels the same betrayal. Ten years of silence, of motionless stupor, ten years of not responding to her only son's voice as he sobbed and begged her for an answer, all knotted up into one terrible moment of anger and heartbreak.

He hears a distant, tinny voice from behind him. He realizes that he dropped his phone. He hears the mediwizard talk about arrangements with a funeral home and the police and he scrambles away, to grab the phone from the floor. "Doctor."

"Draco! What's going on? You're reliving your memories?"

"Yes," he sobs, and he means not to cry, but he does anyway. "Doctor, yes. What's going on? Where am I? Why is the singer doing this to me?"

"I don't know," the Doctor says. "I'm sorry, I – I need to call Harry, I need to see what he's doing. I'll call you back. Hang on!"

The Doctor's call ends. Draco is left staring at his mother as the nurses carry her away, left sitting in the middle of the floor in a room full of hateful whispers and distrustful stares, left with the familiar tangle of self-hatred and emptiness.

* * *

And then Harry is in a cellar. Or at least it looks like a cellar. For a moment, he feels like he can't be sure.

But the longer he looks, the more familiar it is. And as he struggles to remember where he's seen this particular color of stone, where he's seen that stairway, there's a groaning of steel that floods light into the dark half of the room behind him.

It's Draco Malfoy again, about sixteen this time, looking scared and unsure, looking past him. Harry turns and—

"Hello again, Draco."

—Luna. _Luna?_

This is the dungeon beneath the Malfoy Manor, Harry suddenly realizes. It had been burned into his memory long ago. Draco is standing at the top of the stairs, walking down, shrouded in shadow.

Luna is – _oh, God_ – Luna is chained to the wall. She looks like she'e been beaten within an inch of her life, and Harry can smell the residue of Dark Magic, now that he's looking for it. He knew that Luna had been held captive in the Manor, but he never imagined – he never wanted to picture—

"I don't suppose you have good news." Luna's voice is high and thin, but weak, almost fading. Harry's chest aches. He wants to go to her and fix it and heal her wounds. He looks to Draco. What's he doing here? Why isn't he helping her?

His phone rings in his pocket and Harry jumps. He fumbles for it – "TARDIS CALLING."

"Doctor?"

"Harry! Where are you?"

"I'm…"

Draco comes down the steps. He looks sixteen and he is wearing a face of cold impassiveness. He stares at Luna like the very concept of her – her, in his cellar, chained to a wall – is uncomfortable. Harry fights down the kneejerk anger.

"I"m not really sure."

"Draco says he's trapped in his own memories, reliving them. Is that what's happening to you?"

"I thought so at first," Harry answers, "but now I'm in something I've never experienced before."

"What is it?"

"You must stop doing this, Draco," Luna says faintly.

"I don't know," Harry answers. "It's during the War. In the cellar of the Malfoy Manor, I think. Draco's here – or a projection of Draco, or something. And Luna is – she's asking for help, but he's not—"

"So it's not a memory," the Doctor says.

"No, I've never seen this before."

He hears the crackle of the Doctor's sigh. Harry turns away, unwilling to watch Luna in such pain, unwilling to look at what Draco will do to her.

"You must stop," Luna says, "or you'll break yourself."

"I think Draco's about to torture her," Harry says softly.

"Why would the singer show you that?" Draco asks.

"I don't know."

"Please, Draco, you'll break."

Luna screams. Harry's entire body shudders, heel to head. It's a scream he's become far too familiar with over the years. It's the scream that the Cruciatus Curse rips out of you.

"Jesus," Harry whispers, "he is, he's fucking torturing her. Did he – Doctor, did he torture Luna?"

"That's really not the most pressing question, Harry," the Doctor says. "Try not to think about it. We don't know what this singer wants from either of you yet."

Trying not to think of one of his dearest friends being tortured while she is screaming behind him seems to be impossible – and it is, apparently, because Harry turns right back around and watches in anger and horror and nausea as Draco, shrouded, stands over her, as she writhes and wails and sobs in agony. Harry never knew. He only had broad strokes and impressions of what Draco had done during the war, but he never knew, he never imagined…

"Doctor," Harry says.

"I need to call you back," the Doctor says, and hangs up.

* * *

"All power to forward shields!" Kirk says the moment they come racing onto the bridge.

"Shields up!" Chekov echoes, less than a second before – _boom_ – the entire ship rocks to ones side. Kirk

"What the hell was that?" Uhura demands loudly from the side.

"An army of rock-people," Kirk says, loudly. "It's a long explanation, okay?"

"Shields at 82%, Captain," Chekov says.

"Fire proton cannons on my mark. Spock, run analytics on this army; I want to know what they are."

"Yes, Captain."

"And get Scotty to take another pass at that black hole, we need to know what—"

_Boom_, the ship rocks again.

"—shit!"

"They're – they are literally bombarding the ship, Captain," Chekov says. "They're throwing themselves against the side – there are millions!"

"It's primitive, but it works."

"Brace for impact!" Chekov shouts, but no one braces in time.

Draco is in a bathroom at Hogwarts. He is staring into a mirror at his sixteen-year-old self, weak and pale and trembling, who in turn is staring down at the sink. Draco's eyes follow his gaze, even though he knows what is there.

Small and thin and black with a rubber stopper. Nightshade essence. The most potent poison known within the real of magic. One drop, unconsciousness; two drops, coma; three drops, death. He memorized that little warning label, memorized the worn rubber of the stopper, memorized the sickly-sweet smell when he stole it from Professor Snape's store.

"Draco, no," Myrtle says behind him, and Draco shuts his eyes.

Why is the singer _doing_ this. Why _this_. Why every worst part of his life.

"Wouldn't it – wouldn't it be better this way?"

Draco does not need to look to know that his sixteen-year-old self is sobbing. This was the first time he considered killing himself, and it would not be the last.

"Wouldn't it hurt less – less than whatever he'd do to me?"

"Draco, there's always another way."

He didn't believe Myrtle then, and so many years later he still does not. What would a ghost know about living, anyway? And what would it know about pain?

"You remember what happens next."

Draco looks sharply, but his vision is blurred. He realizes, somewhat belatedly, that he is crying. His reflection is not.

"He comes in," the reflection says, and it is his voice – or his sixteen-year-old voice, at least – with his spiteful, condescending edge, "and he cuts you open, and you are so glad that someone did it for you that you cry."

"Who are you?" Draco asks his reflection.

"What sort of a man asks his own reflection who he is? That man must be the most foolish man alive."

Draco shuts his mouth tightly.

"You almost thanked him," his reflection said. "You almost used your dying breath to thank him. Maybe you would have, if Professor Snape hadn't come in when he did. You hate yourself so much that you'd thank the man who cut you open while you lie bleeding at his feet."

"Stop," Draco says, voice breaking. "Why are you _doing_ this?"

"That is a question wrongly asked," his reflection answers. "The question is not why I am doing this. The question is why you are still doing this to yourself."

Draco's fingers curl around the edge of the sink. He is sixteen and on the verge of suicide. He is seventeen and torturing Muggles with a wand that won't stop shaking. He is twenty and burying his father. He is twenty-four and shouting at a mother who does not hear him. He is all of those things at once, and he is falling apart.

"But then, you know the answer to that question, don't you?" his reflection asks. "You have always known the answer. You do this to yourself because you know that after everything you've done, you deserve it."

The words don't sting so much as they ache – slowly at first, and then with gradually increasing intensity. Draco's breath catches, and his shoulders shake.

"All those trips around the universe," his reflection says callously, "all those planets and people you've helped to save – when will it be enough to make up for it? How many lives do you need to rescue until the scale balances against all those you _tortured_ and let _die?_"

"Stop," Draco says again, crumbling forward over the sink.

"You struggle and struggle to try to make it better, but it's _never better_. It will _never be better_. There is no penance for _your atrocities!_"

"_Stop!_" he shouts, and behind him, a lamp shatters.

Draco spins, and Harry is there – goofy, lanky, sixteen-year-old Harry – wand out, and they are dueling. Hexes fly, and Myrtle shrieks.

"No!" she screams. "No! Stop it! Stop! Stop!"

Draco remembers this. He remembers trying to cast the Cruciatus curse, as if it would have worked, as if there was ever enough hatred or anger or _anything_ in him to really use it, but Harry beats him to the punch—

"_Sectumsempra!_"

—and he feels that sting, that hot wetness on his chest, and he falls onto the bathroom floor, still grateful. And when he expects to see Harry looming over him, he only sees his sixteen-year-old self, just as bloody as him.

"You want this," his sixteen-year-old self says to him, and he is right. Draco bleeds and burns and pulses and then he is somewhere else.

* * *

"Doctor!" Kirk's voice is tinny over the aging TARDIS speakers. "Does that ship of yours have firepower, because we could—"

The speaker fizzles as it tries to cope with the volume of the sound that follows. The Doctor waits for it to settle and spins the crank that drags him closer to the black hole. The TARDIS rocks and wails in protest.

"The TARDIS doesn't have any weapons," the Doctor answers once he can be heard. He spins the monitor around. He has a view right into the bridge of the _Enterprise_, where he can see the crew scrambling around and struggling to maintain the shields. "Besides the 17th century cannon, of course, but I don't think that will be of much use."

"We can't keep this up, Doctor!" Kirk says. "These are _tiny_ fucking targets, they're only a few meters long each, and they aren't grouped together—"

"Just a little bit longer," the Doctor assures him. "I'm going to try and talk to the black hole."

"You're going to _what?_"

"Listen, Captain, this is very important. Tell your engineer – the smart one, the quantum physicist – tell him that he needs to calculate the inverse of the gravitational pull from the center of the black hole, or if he can't get readings that close, from the event horizon, and to extrapolate from there. Tell him to get that number as soon as he can; it's _very_ important."

"Can we please fucking talk about how you just said you wanted to speak to a black hole?"

"No time! I'll see you again in a moment, Captain!"

He flips the screen off halfway through Kirk's pained _Doctor_ and returns his attention to steering – such that it is, around a supermassive black hole. Navigating around a black hole is always tricky, not because of the gravity, which the TARDIS is more than capable of handling, but because of the way space-time distorts near the event horizon. Everything goes a bit fuzzy and the controls are never quite right.

He eventually finds the sweet spot, meters from where the singularity should be, and he hurries to the doors. He throws them open and they are very nearly ripped from their hinges.

He is met with a wall of pure and eclipsing blackness His clothes pull forward on his body, and he holds on with both hands to the sides of the door.

"Hullo!" he says, and the sounds are absolutely echoless, swallowed almost immediately by the oppressive dark. "Hullo, am I addressing the Singer?"

For a moment, there's no answer.

"Look, I know this is a long shot," the Doctor says, "but you've showed a nontrivial amount of sentience! If you want to communicate with me, you should be able to!"

Still, no answer. The Doctor wets his lips.

"I don't want to be rude or anything," the Doctor continues, "but I am eating up rather a lot of the TARDIS's processing power trying to shield myself from the massive amounts of anduen energy you're expelling, so I really haven't got all day—"

_I KNOW YOUR ESSENCE._

It's not really a voice, not in the proper sense. Which is to say that there's no air moving through vocal chords and bouncing through air molecules to reach the Doctor's ears. The Doctor doesn't even really _hear_ it in the mechanical sense, it just sort of _is_ in a way similar to the way he comprehends spoken language.

"Oh," the Doctor says. "Do you?"

_YOU MEAN TO COME FOR THEM._

"Well, yes. Generally speaking. Where are they, if I may ask?"

There's another not-sound. Not laughter, but the implication of laughter.

_FAR FROM YOUR REACH, TIME LORD._

"I wouldn't bet on that," the Doctor answers. "My reach is not inconsiderable."

_THEY WILL BE CONSUMED._

The Doctor frowns at the wall of black in front of him. "They _will_ be?" he asks. "If that was your goal all along, why wait?"

_ALL THEIR LIVES, THEY HAVE WAXED AND WANED, UNKNOWABLE POTENTIAL IN THE FLUCTUATIONS OF THEIR MUTUAL ENERGIES. I WILL BRING OUT THEIR INEVITABLE CLIMAX AND CONSUME IT WHOLE._

The Doctor stares uncomprehendingly into the darkness. "What inevitable climax? How can two people be—?"

_THEIRS IS AN IMMEASURABLE ENERGY. ONCE CONSUMED, NO CORNER OF THE UNIVERSE WILL BE BEYOND MY REACH._

But the Doctor isn't really listening anymore. He stares out into the heart of a black hole and struggles to put together the abstract, discreet pieces.

_AND MY SONG WILL REACH ALL CORNERS OF EXISTENCE, AND ALL WILL FALL. EVEN YOU, TIME LORD._

The Doctor remains silent. After a moment, he crosses back toward the TARDIS console, ignoring the tug of warping space-time.

_IT HAS ALREADY BEGUN._

"This will backfire," the Doctor says. "You're overlooking one very important part, one that will bring down all your plans."

_THAT MUST BE A COMFORTING THOUGHT._

The Doctor flips a crank upward and the TARDIS doors snap shut. And even though he knows he should call back the _Enterprise_, there is suddenly a higher priority.

* * *

Draco, torturing Muggles.

Draco, standing by at executions.

Draco, taking the Dark Mark.

Draco, kneeling to him. _Kissing his ring._

* * *

Harry, burning with growing rage.

* * *

Draco, heavy with impossible grief.

* * *

Harry does not understand why this is so hard for him to watch. The War was so long ago. Harry had left it all behind him.

But as he is dragged through instance after instance, he feels like the angry, hurting teenager all over again. All the broader questions – why is he here, why is he being shown this – begin to fade away, and there is a buzzing in his head that slowly takes over with questions of its own – why would Draco do this, how many crimes has he committed that Harry never knew about?

And then, at some point when the shaking in his shoulders is at its worst, Harry is in the TARDIS again, in the back room. He watches himself, pinning Draco down to the narrow twin bed, fucking him, and it's so different from everything else Harry's seen that for a moment he is nearly – nearly – startled out of his anger.

"Oh, you remember this."

Harry turns. It's himself talking to him, which is a strange enough experience in itself.

"Who are you?" Harry asks.

"Stupid question, don't you think?"

Draco yelps and arcs his back off the bed, apparently oblivious to their conversation, his fingernails scrabbling at his doppleganger's shoulders. Harry watches, finding arousal very difficult after he'd just watched Draco torture three Muggles in a row.

"You remember this," his doppleganger says, gnashing his teeth along the curve of his jaw. "You remember his responsiveness, the heat of his body. It was good, wasn't it?"

Harry doesn't answer. The rage is building again in his chest.

"You also remember how quickly it went bad."

_You should have asked for help,_ Harry's own voice rings in his ear. _I could have pulled some strings and gotten your mother admitted._

_I don't need your charity, Potter,_ Draco's voice snaps back. _Not then, not now, _not ever_._

_I'm just trying to—_

_I'm not interested._

"Moments like that," his dopplenganger says, as Draco gasps and moans and bucks into his thrusts, "it makes you wonder if he's even really changed."

_You were ready enough to accept Dr. Lecter's help!_

_That's because I like Dr. Lecter._

"Still spiteful, still obstinate, still crass. He talks a good game, but when you strip it all away, he is still the person who tortures Muggles and kisses Voldemort's ring."

_Talking about it seems redundant at this point. We were both in a vulnerable position emotionally, we were angry, and in the heat of the anger and frustration and emotional catharsis, we had sex. Nothing _meaningful_ has changed, apart from that one time I had your cock inside of me._

"You dreamed about fucking him when you were younger," his doppleganger says. "In equal measure, you dreamed about killing him.

"Well," his doppleganger continues, as Malfoy lets out a particularly loud shout of pleasure, "you've already fucked him, and that didn't work out so great. We both know what that leaves."

Harry's mouth is dry. He can feel his pulse in the tips of his fingers and behind his eyes.

His phone rings in his pocket.

His fingers feel heavy as he gropes for it, pulling it out of the back pocket of his jeans. It's the Doctor. Harry isn't even sure if he can physically make himself answer.

He does anyway.

"Doctor." His voice is hoarse.

"Harry, I know what the Singer wants."

"So do I," Harry says. "She wants me to kill him."

And right at that moment, with an unearthly rage building in him stronger than he has ever felt before, so does Harry.

* * *

Each time Draco thinks he cannot be broken down further, and each time he is proven wrong. Each time he thinks the singer must run out of terrible memories, but she does not. Some other victim screams under his Cruciatus. Some other Muggle drops dead to the floor of the Malfoy Manor. Always, again and again, over and over, until Draco hates himself so much that it physically hurts.

And then he is on a bridge, and that ache turns every vein in his body to ice.

His sixteen-year-old self, bleeding from navel to neck, stands beside him. They both stare at the wide iron rail, and far below, Draco hears the screaming river.

"You want this," his sixteen-year-old self tells him, blood running freely down his shirt, diluted by rain.

"Yes," Draco admits to both iterations of himself.

He walks to the edge of the bridge and braces both hands on the wide metal rail.

"No TARDIS to catch you this time," says his sixteen-year-old self.

"Will it kill me?" Draco asks.

"That's like a man lost in a desert asking if a mirage will quench his thirst," his sixteen-year-old self answers. "It won't, but why does it matter to you? You'll run toward it anyway, because that's how desperate you are."

His phone rings in his pocket. He ignores it.

He steps up onto the railing, bracing one hand on the suspension cable. The water far below churns and wails, wind howls, rain stings his face.

His breath is short and ragged, his vision blurred with either tears or rain or both. And even though he knows there is nothing waiting for him at the bottom, he drops anyway.

* * *

"Shields at 37% and falling, Captain!"

"_Brace for impact!_"

_Boom_.

One of the screens goes black, and Kirk tumbles out of his chair.

"Goddammit, _where is the Doctor?_"

"There are even more of them, Captain – coming out of the moon — there are so many we can't even get an estimate!"

"Send an SOS out to the Federation!" Kirk shouts over the wailing of the emergency siren. "I doubt they'll be able to get anyone out here in time, but it's better than—"

"I'm here! I'm here!"

Kirk spins. The Doctor is scrambling into bridge, mobile phone in one hand, a large brass device over the opposite shoulder.

"_Where the hell have you been?_"

"_Brace for impact!_"

_Boom._

The Doctor nearly tips over, but manages to catch himself on the arm of the captain's chair.

"Sorry!" the Doctor says. "Very important mass text message. _Galactically_ important, actually. But here, I brought this!"

"Great," Kirk says. "What is it?"

"It's a – well, look, it's a sciencey thing, it's way past your time period, all you need to know is that you can hook it up to the mainframe and increase power to the shield."

"Doctor," Spock says, "these creatures – the ones we saw on the moon – they seem to be multiplying!"

"Yep," the Doctor says, carrying the large brass device over to where he's sitting, shortly before he rips open a panel covering the console.

"By my calculations, the _entire mass of the moon_ is depleting – this army _is_ the moon, which means there could be billions!"

"Yeah, that sounds about right," the Doctor answers, ripping his sonic out of his coat pocket and hooking up several fiberoptic wires to the device.

"How do we defeat them?" Spock demands, anger rising in his voice.

"Not sure yet!" the Doctor says. "Where's Scotty? Did you tell him to determine the inverse of the gravitational—"

"Get Scotty on the comm!" Kirk barks.

"Bridge to engineering!" Uhura says. "Scotty!"

"Engineering!" comes Scotty's voice.

"_Brace for impact!_"

_Boom_.

"26%!"

"Scotty, how's that number I asked for?"

"Expanding rapidly, Doctor!" Scotty says. "The event horizon – the singularity itself – is _getting larger_."

The Doctor stops what he's doing and goes over this new information in his head.

"I know what your plan is," Scotty says. "I figured it out the moment I heard what you wanted me to calculate. You want to cancel out the gravitational pull of the singularity with some sort of massive inverse pressure. But Doctor, by the figures I'm getting, this black hole could withstand a pressure thirty-thousand times more powerful than the largest supernovas in recorded history!"

"That is a lot," the Doctor says, mostly to himself, mind racing.

"_It's fucking well more than a lot, Doctor!_" Scotty bellows. "Even if we could somehow _tow_ a supernova of that size to the black hole in time, there's no way it would do more than bruise it!"

The Doctor's mind churns. He stares, transfixed, down that the half-finished jerryrig in front of him and tries his very best not to panic.

"So there's an army of billions coming in unattackable waves trying to destroy the _Enterprise_," Kirk says, "there's a supermassive black hole on our doorstep that is only get larger, there's some sort of impossibly dangerous energy that is threatening to destroy the universe, and _we don't have a viable plan anymore?_"

"I…" the Doctor begins.

"Protocol would dictate that we set to warp and exit," Spock says. "We can't defeat this, but we need to warn the Federation—"

"We can't leave!" Kirk says. "Harry and Draco are still in there!"

"Doctor," Spock says, "we need a plan. _Fast_."

"I'm a little bit short of those at the moment," the Doctor replies miserably. "Unless…"

It's a longshot. The longest shot he's ever likely to take. But maybe, maybe, maybe…

* * *

When he lands, of course, he's alive. He should have expected it, but it still eats him up inside. Every second he spends still breathing feels like a betrayal to a universe that is better off without him. He lies shattered on the ground – soil, some part of him notices, dark and loamy – hands clenched, head down.

In the distance, he hears some sort of commotion, and he reluctantly lifts his head.

Far in the distance, visible only in slits through the trees – he is in the Forbidden Forest now, apparently – is some sort of great clash and clamor of spells, light and sound and energy.

"He's coming to kill you," says his sixteen-year-old self, still bloody, his constant companion. "He saw everything you saw. Torturing all those Muggles. Standing by for executions of innocent people and doing nothing."

Draco can't blame him, then. His hands are shaking from the oppressive cold of the night-darkened forest, and he struggles to pull himself upright.

"Maybe you'll get to thank him this time," his sixteen-year-old self says. "He certainly deserves it. Harry Potter, saving the world one more time."

Draco feels as though he does not have the energy to sit upright, and halfway up he collapses back down onto the underbrush. He lies still for a while, breathing hard, trembling from the wet, soaking cold of the Forbidden Forest. He supposes that trying to face it with dignity would be impossible anyway.

_Ding_, in his pocket. His phone chimes with a text.

Draco doesn't bother.

* * *

Draco, torturing a Muggle. Harry casts a violent spell and the illusion fizzles away like water on hot metal.

Draco, bending to kiss Voldemort's ring. Another spell sends him away like smoke in wind.

Draco, watching as Bellatrix tortures Hermione. Yet another spell, and he's gone ink in water.

"_Stop it!_" Harry bellows into the darkness. "_Stop giving me illusions! Take me to him!_"

The forest hisses as though it heard him, a sound almost like a giggle.

"_Take me to him, Singer!_" Harry shouts at the forest.

The ground, the air, the trees all warp, they flex, and Harry is pulled deeper into the darkness and—

* * *

—_ding_, in Draco's pocket, another text.

Harry is standing over him, shaking with rage. His gripping his wand tightly in one hand.

Draco stares up at him _Ding_, in his pocket.

"No more illusions?" Harry asks.

Draco doesn't answer. Would it be impolitic, he wonders, to demand that Potter just get it over with?

"It's really you?"

_Ding_. Draco grinds his teeth.

He is sure he looks nightmarish. Tears pouring down his face, half-curled around himself on the ground, shivering and broken. Harry approaches slowly; Draco can hear the sounds of his footsteps rustling and crunching in the brush.

"Do you know what she wants?" Harry asks. There's still tension in his voice, like he's a wire worn down and about to snap. "Have you figured it out?"

_Ding._

Who the hell is texting him this much?

"She's been trying to piss me off," Harry says. "Showing me – all sorts of horrible shit you did. People you tortured—"

"I know," Draco says. He makes a second attempt to struggle to an upright position. Ice cold condensation forms along strands of his hair, and they stick to his forehead as he lifts himself upright.

"Not easy to watch," Harry says.

"No," Draco agrees.

Draco manages to sit upright, but he keeps his head down. He supposes, in the end, the best way to go would be unexpectedly.

_Ding._

"Damn it," Draco croaks, and he's not sure why it makes the tears worse, but it does. He scrapes at his face with the heel of his hand.

"Draco—"

_Ding._

"_Damn it,_" he sobs, stuffing a hand into his pocket. His fingers are numb and clumsy, and he just wants him to do it, to just make it end.

"Apparently this has been going on our whole lives," Harry says. "It's why we were never once able to be fucking normal to each other. There's something between us – what did the Doctor call it? Anduen energy, always reacting to us."

_Ding._ Draco can barely hear him, but he lifts his tear-blurred eyes anyway.

"It's what she feeds on," Harry says. "The energy waxes and wanes every time we fight, every time we fuck. She wants me to kill you, to – to bring it to an apex, so she can devour it."

Draco is in no sort of place to be understanding anything Harry's saying. He stares down at his phone and slides to unlock, just as a new text pops up. It's from Tyrion.

_Draco, I've received a rather distressing message from the Doctor. Are you all right?_

Draco frowns, goes to the next text. It's from Dean.

_Hey blondie, you ok? Don't go dying on me, now, we still have that rain check for no strings sex_

Draco would laugh under another circumstance, but he's still too raw, too ragged.

"I mean, she succeed in at least one way – I am _fucking pissed_ right now."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Draco rasps, looking up at him.

Harry frowns at him. "What?"

"Fucking do it. Do it and get it over worth and just – be quick about it, if you have any mercy left in you for me."

"Draco…"

_Ding._ Draco looks down. It's Katniss

_Draco, you all right? The Doctor thinks you're in danger._

_Ding_. A follow-up from Tyrion.

_I don't know what sort of hopelessness the Doctor thinks you are in danger of falling into, but you should know that hope is never completely out of reach, and there is always something worth fighting for._

Draco's eyes burn all the harder. He thinks he knows what's going on, but it hurts a little too much to think of it too deeply.

"Why do you think I'm here?" Harry asks. "You think I'm here to kill you?"

Draco lifts his eyes again. "You're angry," he says weakly.

"Of course I'm fucking angry, there's a sentient black hole trying to talk me into killing you."

Harry collapses on the ground in front of him, on his knees like Draco.

_Ding_, from Dean.

_Worried about you, blondie. There are people who care. Txt me back when you can._

_Ding,_ from Sherlock.

_Mr. Malfoy, I have seen the strength in you, and it is stronger than any darkness the Doctor warns me of. Do not let yourself surrender to your past. You are worth so much more than the scars you carry._

Draco swallows hard.

"She thinks that it's our destiny," Harry says, "that the natural energy between us can only end with death. Well, this isn't my first time saying fuck destiny. _Draco, look at me._"

Harry's hands are on his face. Draco has no choice but to look at him.

"I didn't understand it at first," he says, "but now that the Doctor's explained it to me, I think I finally do. All this time I've been so caught up in the irrational anger it's forced on me all my life, _both_ our lives. I've never been really able to see it clearly."

* * *

The TARDIS monitor flicks on. It's the _Enterprise_ bridge.

"Doctor!" Spock shouts. The TARDIS engines are wailing as the Doctor steers it around the army still bombarding the ship. "Commander Scott is reporting strange fluctuations from the singularity!"

The Doctor spins the monitor around sharply. "What fluctuations?"

* * *

The forest around them starts to warp, or perhaps that's just Draco's fading vision, tunneling until it's just Harry.

He is staring at him desperately, fingernails digging crescents into his jaw, his breath on Draco's mouth. His face is open and vulnerable, frightened in an almost childlike way, and Draco finds himself hanging onto his words.

"I – Draco – I'm in love with you. I think I have been for a while."

There is something warm spreading in his chest – the same energy, but different. "Harry—"

"I love you for your strength and your wit and your courage and your kindness, and I think I have for a while," he says, and the world feels as though it is literally breaking apart under them. "She will never be able to make me hate you for your past sins because seeing how you've overcome them has made me love you even more—"

Draco drops his phone and kisses Harry with such an intensity that reality starts to unravel around them. The energy is thrumming hot in his veins, stronger than Draco has ever felt it before, but warm instead of cold, magnetizing instead of repelling, and it is in him and on him and everywhere around him, and Harry kisses him back as everything around them breaks down—

* * *

"_Holy fuck!_" Kirk says. "_Doctor, look!_"

The Doctor fumbles out and switches the camera's view. The cold knot of the black hole is laced with white-silver light, escaping its gravity like bursts of steam. The TARDIS begins to rumble.

"Yes," the Doctor says, softly at first, then, "_yes!_"

"_What the hell is it?_"

"They did it!" the Doctor says, laughing as the engines wail and the emergency floodlights begin to flash. "The force of a thousand supernovas! Love is stronger than hate, stronger than death, it always has been!

"_WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? A BLACK HOLE IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE AND THAT ISN'T EVEN POSSIBLE!_"

"Stand by, Captain!" the Doctor says. "I need to pick them up!"

He shuts off the comm link before Kirk can get past his sputtering. He rockets off toward the singularity.

* * *

—until the rage and the roar and the breakdown stops, in an instant, and there is cold silence, all-eclipsing but for the warmth that still lingers on Draco's mouth.

He pulls back, breathless and weightless. They are free-floating, clinging to each other in an empty void of space. There is no air, and precious little light, but by the distant glow of a nearby galaxy, Draco can see the features of Harry's face in soft relief.

He does not know where he is. And he is frightened, because for the first time in so many years, he has something worth living for, and he doesn't want to die, not now, not yet—

"Open the door!" the Doctor shouts at the TARDIS as ti tumbles recklessly through space. "_Open the door!_"

It does, but only at the last minute. With one last great roll forward, the doors slam open, and Harry and Draco come crashing through, landing hard on the grated floor.

"You did it! Boys! My boys, my boys, you did it!"

* * *

"Captain, the army—" Spock begins.

"_Enterprise_ to TARDIS! _Enterprise_ to TARDIS! Doctor, all readings have stopped! Do you read?"

* * *

Draco coughs and gasps and rolls onto his back. His head is swimming and the energy is still thrumming in his veins.

"What—" Harry chokes, "what _happened?_"

The Doctor grabs him by both arms, pulls him up, and hugs him tightly, still laughing, before he does the same to Draco.

"You overloaded her!" the Doctor says, hugging them both tightly around the shoulders. "She wanted to absorb the expelled anduen energy when one of you killed the other, but she never could have possibly absorbed the energy created by love!"

"Slow down," Harry says weakly.

"_Love,_" the Doctor answers, pulling back to beam at them. "Always, always, _always_ stronger! Far more than one puny little supermassive black hole could handle! You overinflate a balloon and it breaks apart; you expel too much energy into a black hole, it cancels itself out!"

"That doesn't make any sense," Draco says.

"Not without a doctorate in sciences your planet doesn't have yet _it doesn't matter come here!_"

The Doctor hugs them again, tightly, and despite everything that's happened, Draco laughs and hugs him back.

* * *

"Doctor?" Kirk says. "Doctor, do you read? _Enterprise_ to TARDIS, do you read?"

"Captain," Spock says, "the black hole is gone, and the TARDIS doesn't seem to be responding – it – it seems likely that—"

"TARDIS to _Enterprise_," comes Draco's voice through the bridge, "it's over."

"He's alive!" Kirk says. "They're alive!"

Chekov is the first to cheer; the rest join in kind.

"TARDIS to _Enterprise,_" Harry chimes in, "do you guys need a lift home for repairs?"

* * *

Back on earth — 2200's earth, but still earth, and home enough for Draco – the _Enterprise_ is docked in the largest hangar Draco has ever seen, not that he's seen all that many, but this one still seems quite impressive. Across the way, the Doctor and Spock and Kirk are saying what he can only assume are goodbyes.

Harry appears beside him. "I imagine we'll be going soon," he says. "Said your fond farewells?"

"Please," Draco answers. "I already have both their numbers."

Harry pauses, then grins.

"You know," he says, "I don't find that annoying anymore."

"Do you think the anduen energy is gone, now that it's been – I don't know – actualized?"

"Likely not!" the Doctor says abruptly, walking over and rubbing both hands together. "Anduen energy is a naturally occurring force. I reckon you're stuck with it forever."

"Does that mean we'll keep wanting to punch each other?" Draco asks.

"If I had to guess," Harry says, "probably not."

"It's all a bit theoretical," the Doctor admits. "But now that the energy finally has a permanent outlet, it seems likely that it will be much more stable."

"I think that's a fancy way of saying we're in it for the long haul, Malfoy," Harry says, smiling.

"If you think you're getting a commitment out of me, Potter, before you've even taken me on a proper _date_," he says, "you've got another thing coming."

Harry grins widely. "Pushy."

"I have a suggestion!" the Doctor says.

"A date suggestion?"

"Bennor-6! It's basically Hawaii wrapped around an entire planet. It's often called Honeymoon. What do you say?"

"Are we sure we want to go to a tropical paradise with our track record?" Draco asks. "Better than decent chance it will get invaded or blown up or hit by a meteorite or something."

"That sort of makes me want to go _more_," Harry confesses, and when Draco looks sideways at him, he starts to understand what the Doctor means by the energy being stable. It's warm and constant and familiar, and it makes his heart ache pleasantly with the thought of everything they still get to do.

"I've got a feeling I'll be happy anywhere," Harry continues, "so long as it's not too far away from you."

It's a very sweet sentiment, of course, so naturally Draco says, "You're a soppy, sentimental bastard."

Harry kisses him. Not quite as universe-bending as the first one, but still very, very nice. Draco kisses him back.

"Come on, boys," the Doctor says, grinning. "We're only just getting started."

* * *

**Author's Note:** OMG IT'S OVER! Thank you so much for reading! Especially those of you who were here from chapter one, I love you most of all! If you liked it, leave a review! I love me some reviews!


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